I adamantly reject the belief that some people are inherently better and deserve special treatment by society and before the law because of their ancestry.
This includes all nobility and royalty titles.
Historically and traditionally, nobles are/were the owners of the land. Shoddy job they've done at taking care of the environment. Overpowered by the industrialists, the new ruling hegemonic class (since the aftermath of WWII); who have been clever to stay out of the public view, unlike these historical noble and royal icons.
If the monarchy wouldn't exist as an institution, a lot of that money would still go to the upkeep of the various domains that comprise it. The Buckingham palace won't disappear if the UK becomes a democracy. Assuming all of that money goes into the personal wealth of the members of the royal family is a little naive.
essentially turning that crytpo into the financial system that the original crypto (bitcoin) was trying to differentiate itself from (or make obsolete, we do not know satoshi's political intentions)
> power ... exerting force over a minority ... free software movements
were never about the openness nor the accessibility of the source
code. But about issues such as this.
Yes, Free Software culture has always been more about justice on a new
(digital) frontier where new forms of injustice and abuse roam wild
(and have only grown worse).
I sincerely think the best model for understanding big-tech
corporations like Google is as serfdom under feudal warlords within
modern fiefdoms. It closely mirrors these historical power relations
where laws and constitutions have nothing to say.
The article is long and complex but I eventually found the kernel in
this line:
> "A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions, even
though law enforcement cleared the two men."
Though the moral questions behind it all are very complex, this case
is not itself actually that complex. There was no mistake. No lack of
proper investigation or tardiness by the police. The child, parent,
doctor and police - all of the parties except Google - acted fairly,
in good faith, mutuality and consent.
Google is the problem here, and simply believes itself a law unto
itself, that's the nub of it. For all the posturing about complying
with the laws of nation states, companies like Facebook and Google
have grown smug about their power. When they roll over the toes of the
innocent, they laugh and say "and what are you going to do about it?"
We are in new "might is right" times and nobody big enough has yet had
the courage to say "Act justly, or we will hurt you back", and then
follow up.
For the ordinary citizen, the only sensible course is to resolutely
refuse to use their services and products, and Free Software which
provides so many alternatives to Google, Microsoft, Facebook and
suchlike is the solution. It is the moral choice that a good
citizen can and should make in these times.
This doesn't necessarily take away from your point, but commonly under the law there is a legal fiction that holds a corporation is considered a "person"[1].
yes there's a loss, not a monetary/economic loss, but a loss of (potential) power. the fact the loss is "potential" irks me about calling it a 'loss'; it's not quite a loss, but a missed opportunity to leverage more power over.
how else would all those billions in R&D would be worthwhile for investment institutions?
as I see it (and stretching my reasoning), the lag is also part of what maintains the prestige of many academic and research organizations.
the billions in R&D are not all about the outcomes, a lot of them are spent making sure it's really damn hard for any rivals to catch up. how exactly? I cannot know but I can infer it's got a lot to do with having nobody able to see the whole picture, anybody can only know either how to design the chips, xor how to build them.
if everybody is as good as MIT, then MIT is no longer MIT. somebody has got to make sure some of those 3rd party (and far away) institutions stay there, in the back.
if everybody could do "2nm" process (whatever that means), then TSMC wouldn't be ahead of Intel, and so on...
they removed the human element from the content. they've focused on the outcomes, the resulting inventions of the scientists and mathematicians. they only teach how to use the techniques, not how they were made.
paving the way (or building a wall) such that few can understand how people came up with that stuff. this is intended. this literally constructs knowledge as power.
The ways of thinking used to come up with the techniques are hidden, restricted. The academics who know the whole story (who know the ending -- which is what is taught, as well as how mathematicians of old came up with such ideas) hold this kind of power.
This gets even more interesting when the academics who know the histories, cannot really use the techniques. then the only people who knew both are historical figures (who get bathed in myth).
I cannot forgive them for this, given as they are still actively doing this. e.g. finding out how they make shredded wheat cereal is not possible [1]; and this must be technology from the early 20th or late 19th centuries... anything more recent is just hopeless.
How to make shredded wheat has been publicly known since at least 1895. [0]. How to make it efficiently at large scale is a trade secret that the company invested in and has a right to protect. None of this is related at all to the teaching of differential equations.
again, on my own very stretchy way of thinking (which involves big leaps in reasoning). you're saying that a company has a right to protect its secrets, but I'm hearing something comparable to (e.g.) "colonialist superpowers have the right to enslave people from Africa". I suppose I may be tuning into a moral ethical-framework from the future when I take 'offense' by the "rightful" actions of companies to keep knowledge bound and locked.
the relation is ideological, cultural (in the sense of being close to the intention of); not direct, causal, material (in the sense of relating to the actual implementation).
This includes all nobility and royalty titles.
Historically and traditionally, nobles are/were the owners of the land. Shoddy job they've done at taking care of the environment. Overpowered by the industrialists, the new ruling hegemonic class (since the aftermath of WWII); who have been clever to stay out of the public view, unlike these historical noble and royal icons.