I would only say that humanity continuing to look to solely technology based solutions is an ugly end to an epoch. We risk total resource depletion without a Plan B, and that can lead to a species-fatal population crash. I think we as a global entity need to start focusing on disentangling ourselves from the Corporate mechanism we've created to bring us convenience and abundance. Because it creates people like Edward Bernays and Walt Disney and Megyn Kelly to trick us into believing things that are false and irrelevant. Technology doesn't mean robots. It means better tools. Our user experience is still up to us, and at this juncture in human evolution, I think we all can look around and agree it's time for some brevity regarding where decisions like Citizen's United take us in the future. Not only ecologically and economically; but also spiritually, morally. Nature, when not embraced, has the mechanisms to cleanse herself of infestation. We are a problematic infestation. It remains to be seen if we are self-correcting or are fated for extermination.
This requires a lot of nearly impossible amount of changes to every faction of society. It's not only issues as a consumer, but also as a part of the workforce, and as a human being with dreams and desires. I don't think anyone desires to live on a smaller salary or dreams of purchasing something for a higher cost or inconvenience. Humans, with ever-increasing speed since the invention of television and the internet, wants everything better, faster, cheaper. Now, there are some people who, purely by choice, choose to live a life that is more simple - you hear stories about people living off the grid or disconnecting from society in one way or another. However, the vast majority of people are still driven by money and growth - as an individual, a small business, or as an already large corporation. If you look at those who are "satisfied" with what they have (ie: that old married couple who run the corner hardware store) are they no longer driven by those desires or are they simply limited? Is level of satisfaction they currently have greater than the requirements it would take to grow bigger? If you were to offer the old married couple a shop across the street from theirs, help them hire 2 employees to run that shop, and double the profits, would they say no? If you were to offer another boat to the fisher who fishes sustainably, would he say no? If you were to offered a net to a 100 meter fishing vessel that promised to catch twice as many fish, would he say no? Everyone wants to grow. It's not within everyone's means - it takes some combination of money, resources, time, energy, new skills, etc. But unless you can break that desire in human nature, I don't see the existence of corporations going away anytime soon. Whether is a chain of 2 grocery stores turning into 4, a fisher getting another boat, or Walmart buying Costco, that growth is something that will still be here tomorrow. And as long as the companies themselves exist, the individual consumer will continue to purchase products from those companies because the individual is also trying to grow. If you save $10 at the store today, or 30 minutes to drive to the closer market, you have more resources to grow yourself. Is it feasible to shift human desire before 2048? Is it more or less feasible to hope that those large corporations, large fishing vessels, could use new technologies (tools) to do their job with less damage to the natural environment?need to start focusing on disentangling ourselves from the Corporate mechanism
Perhaps I should have narrowed my terms. The MODERN Corporate mechanism is absolutely unsustainable. You are of course correct that there will always be some form of a Corporate structure, but there must be restrictions on it's reach into society with heavy costs. Otherwise, well... look around. Fukushima is an excellent example. Evidence is coming out now that TEPCO downplayed the nature and severity of the aftermath of reactor 3's meltdown, specifically to protect it's image and the broader image of the nuclear power industry at large. Let that sink in; a Corporate entity made an independent decision about an event that will effect humanity for decades to come, based on it's own profit motive. This is the dangerous slope we're on that requires immediate and drastic correction.
To add to thenewgreen, People tend to forget that huge corporations are made up of a ton of individuals. Ideally those individuals come together to form a team, and the teams come together to form a branch and the branches come together to be the corporation. In reality it is way messier. I've been working with one of the biggest brands in the US and the amount of people, teams, approval, and overall lack of communication is stunning. Certain people know other people who might have the materials or answers you need. But if you are in communication with a team who doesn't know that person exists, you are basically screwed. Most recently, I got a trademark image (basically a low rez, black and white logo on a grid) in response to my request for a high rez logo with a transparent background. So whenever I see huge corps fucking up badly, I wonder who is really to blame. Is it that the corporation actively conspired to hide that information, or did the manager of x department downplay it a little to the manager of y department, who downplayed it a little to manager of z department, who decided it wasn't something that was absolutely necessary to take to the top rung. Or was it actually a bunch of high level guys sitting around a million dollar conference table trying to figure out how to not to screw up their image. And if they did do it, did these suits actually realize the severity or did they themselves underestimate it and then pass that underestimation onto the public. The guys in the middle, who actually know what is going on and the severity, can't do much about shit. They have jobs to keep, family's to feed, bosses to appease, and lives to live. They did their little part and no longer feel like it is their responsibility. With 8000 things going on in peoples individual lives, they can't sit at the dinner table focusing on whether it was handled correctly or not because at that point it's out of their hands. It surprises me that there are ever any whistle blowers at all sometimes. You have to have the miraculous combination of knowledge, empathy, courage and balls of steel to do something like that. The fear of repercussions and the self-doubt must be outweighed by the hard facts that you witness. Even then, humans have a remarkable way of downplaying or second guessing facts.
Having also worked for and with large companies, the amount of nonsense mistakes made on their behalf cannot usually be attributed to conscious decision making. More often than out, the outcome of a Corporate transaction is equal parts profit motive, self-interest on the part of the employees involved, and done at the barest minimum effort involved by those who would most likely be directly responsible for the request.
Edit: ronintetsuro, just read this C4SS post and thought you might enjoy it: http://hubski.com/pub?id=94700More often than out, the outcome of a Corporate transaction is equal parts profit motive, self-interest on the part of the employees involved, and done at the barest minimum effort involved by those who would most likely be directly responsible for the request.
Again, this is unfortunately the human condition. Most people do as little as is needed to get by and maintain their status quo. This is one of the reasons welfare is so cyclical.
Let that sink in; a Corporate entity made an independent decision about an event that will effect humanity for decades to come, based on it's own profit motive.
no form of capitalism, or any other societal structure can abolish human nature. When someone/thing makes a mistake, they try to rationalize and minimize the negative consequences of their actions.