Those are the things that people want and/or need the most and which benefit most from economies of scale.
Because corporations don’t make money by providing goods or services any more, they make money from investments. The economy today mostly consists of rich people giving other people’s money to even richer people, with actual consumers being kept almost completely out of the loop.
It’s like, we all agree that monopolies are bad. We also (I think) agree that if you have a big enough pile of money, you can create a monopoly. We’ve tried to regulate monopolies out of existence, but I’m convinced the only proper way to do it is to regulate away big piles of money. When people amass too much wealth, they can divert labor and resources away from the public good at a scale that can really make life shitty for everyone. The only way to stop that is with an equally massive collective action. Enter “slopulism,” or, in my parlance, people standing up for themselves.
Very important point. Elon Musk is so wealthy and powerful that he’s literally a national security threat, and can majorly impact US foreign policy based on his own whims. It should not be legal to be that powerful, and it doesn’t have to be.
Can you explain what you mean by this? Like, if I have a big pile of money, and I want to destroy my competitor by buying them up, the Federal Trade Commission is going to review my proposed merger and no matter how much money I have it will not allow me to buy my rival.
Even if I don’t buy any big rivals, if I get big enough by even natural growth then eventually the FTC might go after me anyways - I believe that Amazon’s trial is set to begin any day now for exactly that reason.
Which monopolies do you think we’ve failed to regulate away (other than Amazon whose breakup appears to currently be pending)?
Can you give some concrete examples of either of these things? I don’t necessarily disagree - for example, Elon Musk destroying Twitter and the subsequent Exodus of users to BlueSky and other platforms - and I don’t even disagree that the government should be more vigorous in going after some of the worst offenders, like Elon Musk with X - but again, I don’t think the system itself needs to be replaced.
The same people who do it now. The employees of those mega corporations.
What they share in common is that they’re all equally out of touch with reality.
I am related to a lot of very wealthy people (I mean a lot… like 200 at least), many of whom aren’t billionaires, but a couple are. All of them, including the ones who aren’t billionaires, live in a different world. I know because I slide in and out of that world whenever we have a family event. Some of them are very nice and generous people, but there are basic things about how most people live that they will never understand.
I also believe that part of the solution is regulation. Nothing I disagree with here.
Amazon warehouse jobs are significantly more dangerous than other warehouse jobs. That’s what I was referencing. See also: delivery drivers pissing in bottles, women delivery drivers being fired for menstruating and so on. I don’t think that kind of thing was happening in the 1990s, because that level of surveillance was not possible back then.
The Jungle thing was just a joke.
And an oblique reference to the fact that I’ve quit buying hamburger altogether after having the last two batches spoil on me.
The Jungle made me furious actually, because it turned a perfectly compelling novel into a communist manifesto through blatant character assassination.
If you have enough money you can buy the FTC, which has already been done. The FTC has been toothless for a long time, but now it’s blatantly corrupt.
We’ve failed to regulate away big tech companies for decades. The Microsoft anti-trust suit resulted in nothing.
The biggest example right now is AI. Nobody wants it and it’s not making life better for anyone. “But look at how many people use it!” Yes, as a soon-to-be classroom teacher I see how using AI is making everything worse and everyone dumber. “But they’re using it willingly!” No, they are using it because it’s being shoved down everyone’s throats and companies are willing to burn insane amounts of cash to do it. Why did we let companies amass the hundreds of billions of dollars that are allowing them to experiment with our lives? Do you know how bad the education crisis is in this country? How bad our test scores are trending? Reading comprehension? Critical thinking? Where is all the money that could be used to fight these problems going!?
No, but there was plenty of other shit happening in the 90s that isn’t happening today. And Amazon warehouse jobs might be more dangerous than other warehouse jobs, but there are now many more warehouse jobs per capita than before and significantly fewer jobs that were incredibly more dangerous, such as coal miners. And when you look at the job market as a whole, jobs are definitely not more dangerous than they used to be.
If you want to call out Amazon in particular for particular practices, I’m right there with you. There’s plenty to criticize. But that’s not what the post I responded to said.
I guess this is Poe’s Law in action then, because I think there are several posters in this thread (and thousands of people on Reddit) who would say that unironically.
People keep saying that, but it’s not true. I want AI; lots of people I know do as well. Actually, I don’t think I’ve encountered any AI hate offline.
Really? You haven’t encountered anyone bitching about AI in apps, AI slop everywhere, AI cheating in schools, AI taking jobs, AI destroying the environment? Nothing about any of these topics?
eta: I subbed in a computer science class earlier this year, the teacher (a 20+ year veteran) had Claude redo all of her course materials. Every single class complained about it. Every. Single. Class.
I recommend that you read Enshittification by Cory Doctorow. In the book he gives a good overview of the problem of regulatory capture, along with relevant examples and yes, solutions.
But even discounting the FTC, once a company gets to a certain size it can drive competitors out of business pretty easily. Like when Diapers.com started getting business, Amazon was able to sell its diapers at a loss, drive Diapers.com out of business and then jack up the price of diapers. It also has bottomless resources to sue anyone who threatens its business interests.
Uber followed this exact protocol by driving taxi drivers out of business while operating at a loss, then jacking up their rates while simultaneously abdicating responsibility for their employees or the thousands of women their employees sexually assaulted, because you see the drivers are just contracted and therefore Uber Is not responsible for anything they do or for their well-being. While drivers may find Uber more convenient (except many women, who know they are at increased risk of sexual assault), there is no question that people driving for Uber have it worse economically than people who drive taxis. But they have no alternative because Uber killed the competition.
So many indicators that used to consistently increase have reversed themselves – home ownership, wages to inflation, and even life expectancy! This is because of the recent skyrocketing in power of wealth, influence, and power of the billionaire class. They are, quite literally, the enemies of humanity. That doesn’t mean they should be harmed, but that extreme wealth, influence, and power should be taken away from them, and it should be illegal to get that rich and powerful going forward. No one should have even a tenth of the power and influence of Elon Musk. Maybe not even 1/100th.
On Reddit, and here, I see that stuff all the time. In real life? No, I’ve just encountered people sharing what they’ve used AI for.
I mean, I guess I’ve heard people talk about the ‘cheating in schools’ thing here and there, but I don’t think anyone has really COMPLAINED about it. My wife is a teacher; she’s caught some kids doing it here and there; but most of her assignments don’t lend themselves to that, and it’s not like it makes her life materially worse in any way.
These are things you’re hearing about from real people in the real world? Not just online?
Yep, IRL as the kids say. I find it really hard to believe that AI isn’t making anything harder for your wife, but I guess it depends on the school. It’s making my life harder and I’m just a student teacher.
Exactly 25.67x.
What is the “correct” order of magnitude by which we should be talking more about it?
The OP is asking why are they hearing more and more about billionaires, wealth inequality, and corporations as being the source of many problems. I showed how those things have gotten more extreme in the last few decades, both in magnitude and influence. Feel free to argue against those points.
Here’s some research.
It’s mixed.
Some people like it. Most people either aren’t crazy about it, or have mixed feelings, their views appear to be getting dimmer, and that’s not even getting into the huge backlash against data centers.
I blame the AI companies themselves for making up stories about how it’s going to replace the labor market and destroy humanity or whatever. Those messages hit home for a lot of people.
If you ask young people if they would eliminate cell phones from existence, a lot of them say yes. I have similar feelings about AI despite being a regular user and I think a lot of other people do too.
Do the words coming out of my own mouth count as in real life? My husband and I have an ai channel in Discord that is mostly complaints. He despises it and won’t use it. I use it grudgingly and sparingly. I hear people complain about it all the time.
My biggest personal complaint is having to argue with my CEO’s LLM. She has three years of nonprofit experience but ChatGPT has her believing she understands grants as well as a 16-year Masters-level grant writing veteran (me.) It’s so fucking tedious.
I’d give back all the spreadsheets Claude has ever made for me if I didn’t have to deal with that shit anymore.
Literally every day, with all the people I interact with in my office and private life.
ESPECIALLY with it being force-fed to us via Google and Microsoft.