@yabellini@fosstodon has movedJan 9, 2024
Did you realize that we live in a reality where SciHub is illegal, and OpenAI is not?
Show threadAsta [AMP]Jan 9, 2024
@yabellini I don't know whether it's appropriate to say but I just keep thinking "they killed Aaron Swartz for allegedly trying to give people access to science _they've funded_ and they've given 5 billion to Sam Altman for stealing from everyone"

I'm not surprised but for some reason I just can't stop thinking it. I hate it. I hate it so much. They crushed him even though apparently there was a strong indication that what he was doing wasn't even illegal.

EDIT: I’ve been made aware that Aaron’s family opposes this framing about his death, which I did not know about. The campaign against him was awful, but I’m sorry for spreading something disrespectful.
Show threadCarRamrodJan 9, 2024
@aud @yabellini (Mostly) Unregulated capitalism is a cancer.

Edit: missed a word lol
Show threadMarc TriusJan 9, 2024

@CarRamrod @yabellini @aud the reason for the contrast is that Swartz was enriching the commons, whereas Altman is enriching shareholders. It's called the profit motive. No amount of regulation can change the basic incentive structure of capitalism.

They even acquitted German corporate executives at Nuremberg who were working slaves to death worse than the SS at Auschwitz, because it was their "fiduciary duty to company shareholders" to do so, and therefore it was ruled they had no choice...

Show threadArneBab

@alter_kaker there was a time when a company wasn’t considered an entity. Being able to transfer responsibility to basically nowhere (shareholders don’t know and CEOs must not care) as we do it today is not a natural state of the world, but the result of actual choices of actual (powerful) human beings.

It can be changed without having to topple the world first.

But you need to know where you want to go (a plausible vision) and you will see opposition.
@CarRamrod @yabellini @aud

Jan 12, 2024 at 6:31amWeb
Show threadSerge from BabkaJan 14, 2024

@ArneBab @alter_kaker @CarRamrod @yabellini @aud

I see the value of being able to reduce liability. Without that, there would be enormous risk to small business owners.

Where I'd want to see a change is keeping the existing structure as it relates to civil risk, but criminal risk would pierce the corporate veil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil).

Executives could then be criminally liable for the actions of the company, and I'd love to see white collar criminals go to jail over fraud, especially health and safety issues.

I genuinely believe that while the data is poor on jail time being preventative for violent crime, the fear of jail would be a real deterrent to white collar crime.

Piercing the corporate veil - Wikipedia

Show threadArneBabJan 14, 2024

@serge when you’re the owner of a small limited liability company, you have the obligation to declare bankruptcy, if the expected liabilities become larger than the capital of the company.

Though this limited liability doesn’t always seem to work.

When Limewire (LLC) was sued for copyright infringement, it’s CEO Greg Bildson was held liable with his personal belongings.

So who’s liable and who isn’t seems to depend on who sues …
@alter_kaker @CarRamrod @yabellini @aud

Show threadEhproque has movedNov 28, 2024
@ArneBab @[email protected] @alter_kaker @CarRamrod @yabellini @aud "you have the obligation to declare bankruptcy, if the expected liabilities become larger than the capital of the company."
Good thing oil companies don't, because they don't own the planet
Show threadArneBabNov 28, 2024

@ehproque You’re only liable, if you actually have to pay for the damage you cause.

Also looking at nuclear power plants who can’t ever have enough money to safeguard their garbage for the tens to hundreds of thousand years in which it needs safeguarding.
@alter_kaker @CarRamrod @yabellini @aud

Show threadCarRamrodJan 14, 2024
@serge @ArneBab @alter_kaker @yabellini @aud I honestly believe abandoning neoliberalism is imperative considering through this awful philosophy we have made a previously illegal economy legal, led by charlatans known as executives who now get rewarded via stock options that only reward short-term performance to the detriment of literally everyone else. Factor in stock buybacks getting legalized by Reagan and this was always going to be the end result, negligence and fraud riddled throughout the entire economy that is quite literally a house of cards that was entirely illegal before the 70s/80s where we abandoned New Deal ideals/principles.

On top of that criminal liability for corporations and their officers needs to be implemented and these low level fines need to end. A cheap fine simply means something is legal for a price.
Show threadSerge from BabkaJan 14, 2024

@CarRamrod @ArneBab @yabellini @alter_kaker @aud

I don't know enough about the issue of stock buybacks to comment on that, but I agree that we should be taking on white collar criminals with the same vigor as violent street crime, and prosecutors should be prosecuting it as they might prosecute organized crime.

I'm not in favor of capping executive pay, but I am in favor of making liability part of that equation. An executive who makes hundreds of thousands, or a million dollars a year can take on the responsibility that comes along with it.

I also agree with you that the standard shareholder system incentivizes all involved to seek short term profits over long term investment- and that includes the shareholders themselves. Everyone is acting rationally but to make an analogy to a board game, certain rules favor a certain style of play.

Show threadCarRamrodJan 14, 2024
@serge @ArneBab @yabellini @alter_kaker @aud I would never say everyone is acting rationally when I look at the current economy considering it is mostly BS and full of fraudsters. Stock buybacks used to be illegal as they are market manipulation, but when the West completely embraced neoliberalism in the 70s and the culmination in the 80s with Thatcher and Reagan. We are quite literally still running these ridiculous charades even though we know this will not end well. It mirrors the economy of the 1800s, which was an awful time to live through since it was a class of aristocrats that abused the poor masses.

What good reason is there to not cap executive compensation? In the equation of capitalism it means that tons of people will be poorer because we want to allow a small number of people to accumulate absurd sums of money they will never need and they do not deserve.

Don't forget the fascists in America log ago set out to destroy any competition with ruthless capitalism and it is very obvious they have succeeded when adequate regulations and taxation are a nonstarter for most people. As the old commercials warned about drugs, "this is your brain on capitalism."