This is fantastic news - now if only they would just cut the cord. The US Chamber of Commerce is straight out of the 50s and they need to wake up to the fact that innovative businesses want an open market, not to be coddled by the government.
Excuse my skepticism, but would Google pulling out ACTUALLY do anything?
I can understand the argument that innovative businesses don't want anything to do with them, but again the Chamber of commerce is an organization aimed at protecting old businesses anyway. They could care less about what innovative businesses think.
I think the chamber of commerce could care less. They're a force of evil against consumers. If they had it their way there'd still be lead paint on your walls, seatbelts would be optional, and the ingredients of your food would be a mystery.
It's a common idiomatic expression and I'd be willing to wager that everyone who read it understood what it meant. I'd also wager that most people could really give a shit if it offended a few language prudes.
I would usually agree, although not all idiomatic constructions are created equal. I find the "could care less" construction to be as nonsensical and dumb sounding as "irregardless". Moreover, I found your response to be gratuitously offensive as it paired vulgarity with an implied insult to your parent commenter.
I followed those links, and was rewarded with what I believe to be one of the best discussions on HN. Thank you for having taken the time to share that.
In hindsight though, I am saddened at how much more often conversations like that used to occur on HN, and how rarely they seem to now.
I read your linked comment, but I didn't find it persuasive. I'm no language Nazi. It's clear that language pedants are a pet peeve of yours, and that's fine, but language being fluid is not the same thing as language not having boundaries. It also doesn't imply that users of the language can be prevented from having opinions about its usage. We all together decide the standard, as I'm sure you'll agree. Currently, it's still true today that people in educated circles find "could care less" and "irregardless" to be ugly usage. I think there's good reason for that, but I don't plan to make a detailed analysis here. Steven Pinker's analysis notwithstanding, nothing in the linked comment is dispositive.
My original comment was not prescriptive. I do not claim to be the ultimate authority of the language because no such authority exists. It's hard for people to imagine, but what constitutes proper English is actually probabilistic. Some stuff is 75% good English and some stuff is 50% good English. Some idioms are more or less good English. I find the constructions under discussion to be less good, and my opinion carries the authority of my fraction of say-so as a member of the English using community.
But, frankly, I'm off track. My original point was to call attention to the inappropriate tone of one of the disputants, not participate in more natural language pedantry on the Internet.
While I hope not to open the entire can of worms to which codyrobbins referred, I strongly suspect "I could care less" is a shorter form of the more obviously ironic "like I could care less". Treated as straight-up irony, the usage makes perfect sense.
You lost your wager. I found it totally confusing, and only understood the meaning after reading the reply that explained the meaning is the opposite of the words.
I don't think the issue is whether language prudes are offended, but whether the communication is clear.
I, too, find yuor commnet a bit ofsnfevie. It's a cmmoon US iiodtimac epxresosin, that maeks lttlie snese if you try to itnreerpt it liolglacy. Most popele wlil be able to urnestdand this post frialy wlel too, ifrneirng minenag mnaes nhontig.
Edited to add: The original, British form, was "I couldn't care less".
Orthography and lexical choice are two different issues. Spelling has to be standardized to facilitate written communication—word choice doesn’t because words inherently have semantic content.
As large and powerful as Google is, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the combined punching weight of everyone else involved in the Chamber. A lot of the companies may be old-school, and some of their industries may be dying, but in terms of collective political influence, they're a serious 800-pound gorilla.
I am not sure what Google pays in dues but I am willing to bet it is in excess of $100,000 and probably closer to somewhere in 10 digit range. That is a financial blow that would put pressure on them to stop alienating progressive businesses.
Chambers of Commerce are apparently only very loosely associated, and the politics of various international Chambers of Commerce diverge a lot.
Perhaps there is room for another national level Chamber of Commerce for the US - one with a more progressive outlook, with a look towards building new businesses and industries, not protecting dying ones.
I wonder if the dues from Google, Yahoo, the CEA, and Apple (all mentioned in the article for having or thinking about dropping out over politics), would be enough to bootstrap such an organization…...
I believe we're seeing, or at least I hope we're seeing, a collision between the rent-seeking faction of American corporations and the productive, profit-making factions of American corporations.
It would be very nice to see a coalition of companies who stood together on the principle of protecting the profits that come from creating more opportunities instead of the rent that comes from a variety of state-supported monopolies (Patents, "intellectual property" (Hollywood, patent trolls), monopoly on the use of telephone poles(AT&T).
"I wonder if the dues from Google, Yahoo, the CEA, and Apple (all mentioned in the article for having or thinking about dropping out over politics), would be enough to bootstrap such an organization…"
None of those companies would be particularly interested in such an organization, as they are all monolithic "old" organizations in their own right. Apple, Yahoo, and Google don't want to push through legislation that would make it easier to compete with them. Apple, certainly, is uninterested in patent reform and Google's criticisms of patent law in the US are likely to subside as they build a big enough portfolio to successfully defend themselves from the Apples and Microsofts of the world.
Title, yes; link, no. I assume that's to avoid posting something, attracting high upvotes, and then swapping over to a spam link while attracting the HN hordes.
In particular, CEA members are up in arms over so-called private right of action provisions in the bills that would allow trademark and copyrights holders to seek court orders requiring ad networks and payment processors to cut off business with an allegedly infringing site.
Tricky territory. It's a fight between content providers versus Google.
No, it's a fight between content providers and everybody else. Or some content providers.
I have heard the Chamber of Commerce's position referred to as "Rotarian Socialism - Free Enterprise, and Keep those subsidies coming." In this particular case they want to expand some members legal privileges which is even worse, long-term, than financial subsidies.
Does this mean that google would have to stop linking to some of the pages on its own website if the litigation goes through?
ie: their 'secret books project' where they scanned thousands of books into their google reader database without first getting permission from the authors?
