Working backwards: If you lie to a corporation about your personal information, that might be called "insurance fraud," for which there are absolutely ramifications. Much like an insurance company, the government compels us to pay a certain amount in to promote good behavior and indemnify against the societal risks of bad behavior. That's called social contract. "But what if I don't want to" has never been a compelling argument to me, which is one of the reasons I've never found libertarianism convincing. If you don't want to follow the social contract, then the social contract breaks down. When the social contract breaks down, and corporations (as well as individuals) are allowed to act in their own unfettered self interest, then you get the East India Company. That's the point. If you remove government oversight, you don't get better business. You get government by another name.. The difference between modern liberal democratic government and corporate government is that one is ostensibly using monopoly on power to enforce social boundaries and thereby uphold social order and manage use of national resources; the other uses that monopoly on power to maintain profit at all cost, no matter how brutal. I know which rubric of public management I'd be willing to trust more if I "followed the money". Speaking of monopolies. You opened a previous portion of the discussion describing how Walmart might increase market share simply by improving their overall customer experience. The implication, I presume, was to illustrate how beautifully the market self-regulates through positive interactions to make both sides prosper. But it ignored malfeasance, because malfeasance illustrates how in the absence of regulation, the market cares only about profit by all available means. The means I supplied are absolutely tactics pursued by corporations to consolidate market share and increase profits without having to consider the quality of their product or user satisfaction. And the absence of end user harm cannot be conflated with the presence of end user benefit, especially if we recalibrate our idea of who the end user is. While I, some random Joe on the street might not care about corporate espionage so long as my computer still runs, if I was, say, the inventor of a certain kind of computer chip and I appreciated the revenue that my intellectual property generated, I might be kind of sore if somebody stole that intellectual property, and might appreciate the regulations that curb such bad behavior. As for monopolies, they decidedly don't result in cheaper diapers. All this is to say, I really truly don't understand this dogmatic trust in corporation over governance. There's too much evidence being swept under the rug indicating how corporations would act in absence of regulation. In my eyes, mistrust is maybe the strongest regulatory weapon we as individuals have at our disposal. That goes for both government and the market. Why do we have to couch it as a binary choice between one or the other? As for the opinion piece that we're discussing: Pish posh. The purpose of that piece is to present the author's opinion as common sense using a sort of gee-whiz, down-home-country-lawyer reliance on The People's love of a good, simple narrative. It opens: And then expels paragraphs of hand-wavy opinion such as without ever relying on so much as personal anecdote. Even the portion on history doesn't refer to any particular historical example. The author practically begs his audience not to consider concrete examples or counterpoints lest it deflate the argument. Never mind the fact that in the introduction, the author questions the sense of mistrusting the corporation over personal acquaintances, asserts that out of the three provided groups, the corporation is by far the most trustworthy, and then never addresses the enormity of that claim. I should trust the corporation more than my wife? My friends? My mother? It's an absurdity so enormous that the author seems to rely on us just kind of... accepting it? And here's what I really don't understand. You're obviously very intelligent. And you're obviously well-attuned to historical precedent, and not afraid to buttress your opinions with examples. If I asked you not to consider history or legal precedent, you'd wonder why I'd redirected your attention. Moreover, you strike me as somebody who tailors his argument to the audience- the right tool for the right job to maximize efficiency. This opinion piece you posted- it bothers me because it asks its audience not to consider things too carefully. It requires tremendous faith not only in corporations, but in the authority of an entire stranger (not at all one of the "people I know in my personal life") without that stranger's ever having to demonstrate that authority. To whit, it's written for an audience of stupid people. And you chose this article over others to present to this audience on this site. Then again, it generated discussion, so who am I to finger wag.If I lie to a corporation about my personal information, nothing happens. If I lie on the census, the penalty is $500. The census has a noble intent, but if I happen to believe public money won't in fact be more equitably and efficiently allocated based on my postcard, why must I be threatened to fill it out?
The East India Company may be a fair example of commercial abuse of power in the 1800's, but it basically was the government in India
The purpose of the article is to ask if our mistrust in corporations is proportional to corporate misbehavior, compared to government or individual behavior.
I would initially expect most people’s attitudes to be pretty closely tied to their personal experience, more so than their book learning or what they hear on the internet.
I would not, and neither would most people. Maybe a few very unusual people would. But we can hardly be resentful and distrustful of someone for just behaving the way the vast majority of normal people would behave.
Boy, I wish I had a fancier answer than grilled cheese, but that's about all we have at hand these days. I bought flour, too. What I didn't buy was bread flour. Rookie prepper move. How have you been???
Some day I'll work up the gumption to do a sourdough starter. Apparently it stinks to high heaven, but goddamn it would be worth it...
Runner-up: Mark Bittman, whose no-knead bread is as easy as he makes it sound, and also comes out as good as it looks in the NYT pictures. Just make sure to take the suggested amount of time. Good bread requires patience.
Man, I hate doing the line item thing, but I'm going to. I fail to see the direct line of reasoning between this statement and your original statement ("there is no positive case for Joe Biden"). So what if a broad swath of the Democratic lineup shared some positives? How does that then translate to "there are no positives for Biden"? Lemme FTFY: I'll demonstrate: Bernie Sanders is a Socialist, and Socialism is bad, mkay? Oh, no! There are vague and unfounded rumors that Biden has dementia! Guess what is a perfectly well-founded fact? Bernie Sanders had a fucking heart attack! And now he refuses to share his medical records! Wonder what he's hiding about the state of his health? Bernie Sanders is a fucking hypocrite. None of this is to slag on your preferred candidate. It is only to demonstrate that there's no such thing as an unassailable frontrunner. You opened with: Nah. The sole reason to vote for Joe Biden is that he plays for the blue team, not The red team. In doing so, you are absolutely making a "both sides are the same" argument. There are no benefits to voting for Biden over Trump? The only difference is the color of the team? Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. No, it's not. And it's statements like this that demonstrate as much. If the last three years, the last three weeks have taught us anything, it's that messaging matters. Words and ideas, they're like memes, they're like viruses. If your message is "vote or don't, I don't give a shit because there's only one perfect candidate and he's no longer in contention," that message helps shape voter enthusiasm, and ultimately turnout. We saw that last election. And we've seen what the consequences have been. Why are you doubling down on the message? What's the value in ignoring every good reason to vote for the better candidate?Any positive you can list for Biden is true of any of his political opponents within the Democratic party.
Just like the last Democratic nominee for President, he comes with a ton of political baggage that can, has been, and will be leveraged against him.
Just like EVERY nominee for President, he comes with a ton of political baggage that can, has been, and will be leveraged against him.
I am not making a 'both sides are the same' argument.
Is there a positive case for voting for Joe Biden?
I'm falling in line, isn't that enough?
Working next three days. Thinking on this. If I don't respond, bug me because I tend to let discussions and ideas dribble off the court.
Holy cow. Even odds that Barr not only recuses himself but resigns by the end of the week. Also: the White House agrees to release this transcript, but the DNI still holds fast (illegally, as it is, per whistleblower rules) to the original complaint. How much worse is the complaint? What more does it elucidate that the White House doesn't want touching daylight?
No, of course! Look forward to hearing it.
Everybody should listen to this series and spit on his name. I'm not one to wish ill on anybody, but I hope he chokes on a sharp chicken bone.
I'm at work and can't respond to this, but I want to. Please give me a day or so.
Love it
My god it tastes so good, though. I like to think I've only ever had goose liver foie gras because geese deserve that shit.
Oh, I for sure get down on one of these every once in a while. I just hate myself for it.
Ah, damn.
I don't even think it's that subtle. I feel like he might have needed some red meat to feed the base after his "widespread deportation" plan failed to materialize. So instead of thousands deported, we got a piggish little man telling a few non-white politicians to go back to where they came from. Which would be funny if it weren't, you know, entirely not. Regardless of motivation, the bigger issue for me is that so many people are totally fine with it, and so many more seem to have just accepted it as the status quo.
Last post of mine overly venomous even for me. I agree with what you said above.
Your voices compliment each other so well! Is there a term like blood harmony but for people who are married? "Soul harmony"? Like the tone of this one, v. distinct from your other stuff. Love the samples. Keep pumping them out, dude! And convince your wife to collaborate more often.
Well, goddammit. It's despicable no matter who does it. What a shitty precedent.
Got a nice Mermaid Avenue/Guthrie protest feel to it. Also, that guitar tone is $$$. What are you playing and with what effect? If I get a chance in the next week, might throw some stuff on here.
When I moved to Kentucky, I remembered you mentioning this magazine, and then I read it at my hair cutting place, and then I promptly got a subscription. It's every bit as glorious as you said. No regrets.
Feel like you know everybody. Never really got into "Modern Vampires"- listened again last week to see if it sparked something new, but alas. The new one, though- I'm with you on that. Totally different songwriting, and the production is just incredible. Had it on repeat.
Thanks, TNG. It means a lot coming from you- from everybody here, really. This is kind of the last place I still feel comfortable telling people that things don't feel 100% okay. That speaks to the community here. I'll be alright, sometimes it helps to just scream a little. Helps even more to hear people I appreciate shout back.
This is all shockingly accurate. It follows the course of my interactions with the filmmaker to a tee. I'd be cool if they wanted John Williams, because nobody's John Williams. They wanted the theme to "Little Miss Sunshine." That should've been my first warning. Anyhow, thanks for this. It helped.
You know what, even just saying this is enough. Just been too long between hearing from anybody in the outside world, the tunnel vision is clearly getting to me. Needed this, thanks.
Those are some tight harmonies, powerful lyrics. Always great to find a new medium and see where the inspiration takes you. Glad to see that you're still finding time to make music. Can't wait to hear more new songs.
Would love to get Joe Trump Voter's take on this. "LOCK HER UP" was such a central theme to the 2016 campaign. Jared "now I'm a real boy" Kushner can't even plead ignorance the same way Clinton did since they made such a goddamn stink about it directly preceding. Then again, this is the electorate that regularly says shit like "I still support what Trump does, I just wish he wouldn't tweet about the stuff he's doing", so maybe cognitive dissonance went down the shitpot years ago
You might like it. Picked it up because I thought it was gonna be all sorts of crazy shit about underground facilities- which it is, in part. But mostly it's about the arms race and how our leadership is constantly pushing the nuclear envelope even when everybody recognizes that it's not in any way a good idea. It's infuriating. Not so much a frog slowly boiling in a pot as a frog sitting in the pot and periodically turning the burner up.
While digging into this a little, I came across a pretty neat online essay about advertising bans in the United States (appropriately titled "Advertising Bans in the United States") : https://eh.net/encyclopedia/nelson-adbans/ Seems like the answer to your first question, "should we hold companies liable for irresponsible advertising" seems to be, well, we can, and we do. The four-pronged test cited in this essay, at least in theory, lays out pretty stringent rules for how the government may censor admen: is the product/activity lawful? Is the government's interest in regulation substantial? Does regulation thereof directly and materially advance that interest? Is that regulation not excessive? In practice, seems like enough wiggle room can be found to restrict commercial speech when the opportunity presents itself and where the political wherewithal can be mustered. Given the above parameters, the answer to the hypothetical "are we going to blame a car manufacturer that runs an ad about how its car is really fast if some teenager wrecks because they were speeding" may very well be: yes. Which is probably why every car commercial you see where a roadster is zooming down a country road includes the small-text disclaimer to the tune of "car being driven by professional on closed course, don't do this, dipshit." The bigger sticking point, and one you raised way back when, would be: is there any point to such restrictions? Do they work? According to this essay, at least, the answer is no. Restricting the way cigarettes are advertised, for instance, has had a dubious effect on smoking rates. Which bums me out on a lot of levels. And kind of deflates my idea. As to your final point, I respectfully submit that blame isn't a scarce resource, and doesn't have to be doled out as such for better or worse. We can shine equal light on the actions or failures of an individual's immediate community as well as his broader cultural upbringing. Both are issues that need to be addressed.
That's gotta be adorable. Get some recordings! Still digging around specific models. Right now my only prerequisite is that it's tape, not digital. Considering I recorded half the tracks from my latest stuff on this bad boy (sidenote: who's buying these things used for 70 bucks?), anything is an improvement.
Isn't that what people said last time? And then he pulled a mini-Nader and the enthusiasm gap helped push us into Trump country. And FWIW, he already did push the candidates leftward. Now Medicare for all is the gospel of party hopefuls; Warren is proposing universal free childcare, too. I can't wait to see what reasons bros come up for this time as to why the likes of Warren and Harris are too impure to consider as "true" progressives. I wish Sanders had decided to sit this one out.The real reason he is running will be to move the other candidates to the left a little bit to court his base.