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krunck 3 hours ago [-]
"...Google execs all work for their shareholders, in a psychotic "market system" in which the myth of "fiduciary duty" is said to require companies to hurt us right up to the point where the harms they inflict on the world cost them more than the additional profits those harms deliver"
Nailed it.
tptacek 2 hours ago [-]
Not really. The idea that "fiduciary duty" requires companies to maximize shareholder value is a pernicious Internet myth.
topaz0 2 hours ago [-]
That myth long predates the internet version of it I think. Pernicious, yes.
But note that the quote does call it out as a myth.
tptacek 1 hours ago [-]
Fiduciary duty isn't a myth! It just doesn't mean what people claim it means.
fsflover 57 minutes ago [-]
Will you enlighten us?
mindslight 1 hours ago [-]
Legally, sure. (there's a citation, a case between craigslist and a minority shareholder (ebay I think?), that backs up your argument about the common trope).
But when stock valuations are completely disconnected from fundamentals like earnings, then regardless of the legality we're kind of circling back to the market pushing that dynamic, aren't we? It's like the market is no longer even optimizing for short term gains per se (eg quarterly earnings), but rather for whatever memes might boost their meme stock. Sometimes this is [still] quarterly earnings, and sometimes it's about the perceived size of the market or how they're cozying up to the fascists in power. So for public companies, it's not like major shareholders, the board, or management really have the ability to work towards longer term plans that go against this dynamic.
fsflover 2 hours ago [-]
And yet this is exactly how every single megacorp works.
text0404 2 hours ago [-]
Citation needed because all evidence to the contrary.
afpx 2 hours ago [-]
Why was this flagged? And, there's no vouch option
Yes, Thiel openly says surveillance tech is the anti-Christ. Then, he goes on to build the tech.
The frustrating thing is seeing it happen in real-time and knowing you can't inform or educate enough people.
I didn't flag it because it might be the first original thought that blog has had in years, but I totally understand the impulse to flag pluralistic without even reading it.
fsflover 1 hours ago [-]
What are you talking about? This blog has many good, not flagged submission here.
leptons 2 hours ago [-]
I worked for an ad-tech company for 3 months. I could not wait to get out of there.
It became clear to me quickly that the data these people wanted to collect on anyone and everyone could be used against me should they want to - not that I was doing anything questionable, but it was just creepy as F**.
The final straw for me was when they got some kind of contract with a major hotel chain and were all-too-giddy to listen in on the smart TVs in every room. I did not want to help them further any of their agendas, so I bailed on that place. Fortunately this was many years ago when dev jobs were easy to come by, I had 3 offers in a week.
2 hours ago [-]
guywithahat 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
baal80spam 2 hours ago [-]
In social media at least it's akin to "this thing I don't like".
krunck 2 hours ago [-]
While the author is using the term "fascist" in a more pejorative way than in a strictly descriptive way, it is not wrong to say many trends in big tech are pointed in a fascist direction.
"Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."
Source: Wikipedia(Emphasis mine)
SunshineTheCat 2 hours ago [-]
> "unless your definition of fascism is just a thing you don't like"
I think online at least, this has become fairly normal for many of the most charged words/accusations/charges.
The problem with doing this, of course, is that when the word is needed for something it actually represents, you run the risk of people thinking you're talking about something mundane.
ragall 2 hours ago [-]
> Fascism, at least as the Nazi's defined and implemented it, is the belief that a socialist economy will work when the people have a similar genetic likeness.
Wrong. You can read Umberto Eco's essay "Ur-Fascism" to have a more informed view.
2 hours ago [-]
__alexs 2 hours ago [-]
The only interest the Nazi's had in socialism was eliminating it. They invented privatisation and crushed unions.
inquirerGeneral 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
righthand 2 hours ago [-]
You’re forgetting that a key aspect to fascist systems is tracking and identifying individuals and removing any privacy barriers so they can be classified and prosecuted.
inquirerGeneral 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
mindslight 2 hours ago [-]
> Fascism, at least as the Nazi's defined and implemented it, is the belief that a socialist economy will work when the people have a similar genetic likeness.
I have seen many arguments supporting the destructionists (aka trumpists) from that exact vein. From the longstanding abstract "immigrants come here and sit on welfare" and "we need to take care of our own" to specifically supporting the recent pogroms as necessary before we can do things like fix healthcare or restore employees' negotiating power. So even by your definition, it seems eminently reasonable to describe the destructionist movement as fascist. And the point isn't to use the label, drop the mic, and consider the topic solved. But rather it's to have a basic dialogue so that we can discuss constructive solutions for opposing it - and that's basically how it's being used in the original post, regardless of your tone policing.
(On the idea itself, I'd say it's preposterous to think that the corpos that drive our politics are going to suddenly switch to supporting socialism if only we racially purify our society, but there are unfortunately a lot of true believers. I'd say the dynamic is more like the only point of the socialist aspect is to assuage people's consciences for having rejected their empathy here and now)
nickff 3 hours ago [-]
This piece is a polemic screed against ad-tech, which seems to conflate fascism and the police state. The majority of citations are either themselves or other polemics.
hananova 3 hours ago [-]
This comment is dismissing a thoughtful and factual article by the character of the writer rather than the truth of their words. Interesting.
nickff 2 hours ago [-]
What did I say about the writer's character?
bobtheborg 2 hours ago [-]
I found many points interesting. Here's one:
Policymakers supposedly work for us/the people and they could have made surveillance ad tech expensive and thereby severely limited it, but
> "Policymakers failed us because cops and spies hate privacy laws and lobby like hell against them. Cops and spies love commercial surveillance, because the private sector's massive surveillance dossiers are an off-the-books trove of warrantless surveillance data that the government can't legally collect."
nickff 2 hours ago [-]
That point may be pithy, but it's unconvincing to any skeptic; those are characteristics of a polemic.
sharkjacobs 3 hours ago [-]
Would you be assuaged if it was titled "Ad-tech is police state tech"?
nickff 2 hours ago [-]
I think that would definitely make it a more precise polemic, but the incorrect use of the word seems more of a symptom of the author's sloppiness than anything else.
lo_zamoyski 2 hours ago [-]
Word use is important. We have allowed thumos (and epithumia) to rule over nous.
It has become acceptable to misuse words, like "fascist" or "communist" in political contexts, to the detriment of rational and fruitful discourse. Often a false equivalence is drawn between denying something is "fascist" or "communist" and denying something is bad. This is false. Something can be bad without being fascist or communist.
There is plenty to be critical about in American politics and in tech, but calling everything you don't like "fascist" or "communist" isn't helpful. These seem to be go-to words used by those "defending" what is now a crumbling postwar liberal democratic order, i.e., anything that seems at odds with this order is reflexively called one of these two terms, depending on which faction of the American uniparty you align with.
mindslight 52 minutes ago [-]
Word use is important.
Please explain how the trumpist movement significantly differs from most points of Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism. Because in my estimation, the word is entirely appropriate for what we're facing and people are shouting it down because they don't like the uncomfortable truth.
I'm open to changing my mind, especially if there is a better term that more accurately describes what we're facing. Because the dynamic isn't merely "crumbling postwar liberal democratic order", but rather a particular overly-simplistic reaction to that crumbling.
OCASMv2 30 minutes ago [-]
Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism only has validity in the eyes of communists. Hell, it's so broad it even applies to many brands of commies and anarchists.
mindslight 21 minutes ago [-]
I'm open to another definition that attempts to faithfully capture the general dynamics of fascism, and avoids the trap of pigeonholing the term into a few specific movements that are now safely in the past.
pigeons 2 hours ago [-]
Remember those sci-fi books and movies about the dystopian totalitarian futures where advertisements were constantly targeted at you?
2 hours ago [-]
amadeuspagel 2 hours ago [-]
HN has ads (job ads for YC companies). When I see people post these deranged takes about ads on HN, I always ask myself: Do they not notice this--a common criticism of ads is that they blend too much into the real content, and this is nowhere more true then on HN--or do words just not mean anything to them, do they just mindlessly repeat memes rather then thinking about what these ideas mean for their own life? Is a sentence which to me expresses an idea to them more akin to a drug that gives them a kind of moral high? Because if I thought that ads were fascist, I'd look for a forum that doesn't have any, like Lobsters[1].
By "ad-tech" it's referring to the surveillance that underlies modern targeting of ads on the internet. YC's job ads don't do that.
hightrix 2 hours ago [-]
When most people complain about ads, they are complaining about targeted ads.
Job postings, Show HN, and other ads on HN are contextually relevant to a majority of the users and require no tracking to present.
This post appears to be about the former, not the later.
Herring 2 hours ago [-]
You’d still be having fascism here even if the internet didn’t exist. The most reliable way to prevent the rise of the far right is to implement robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance. Support for such measures (welfare, healthcare, unionization, high taxes etc) is usually low among Americans. Eventually rents/healthcare/tuitions outpace income, so people become desperate and start voting for strongmen.
Nailed it.
But note that the quote does call it out as a myth.
But when stock valuations are completely disconnected from fundamentals like earnings, then regardless of the legality we're kind of circling back to the market pushing that dynamic, aren't we? It's like the market is no longer even optimizing for short term gains per se (eg quarterly earnings), but rather for whatever memes might boost their meme stock. Sometimes this is [still] quarterly earnings, and sometimes it's about the perceived size of the market or how they're cozying up to the fascists in power. So for public companies, it's not like major shareholders, the board, or management really have the ability to work towards longer term plans that go against this dynamic.
Yes, Thiel openly says surveillance tech is the anti-Christ. Then, he goes on to build the tech.
The frustrating thing is seeing it happen in real-time and knowing you can't inform or educate enough people.
It became clear to me quickly that the data these people wanted to collect on anyone and everyone could be used against me should they want to - not that I was doing anything questionable, but it was just creepy as F**.
The final straw for me was when they got some kind of contract with a major hotel chain and were all-too-giddy to listen in on the smart TVs in every room. I did not want to help them further any of their agendas, so I bailed on that place. Fortunately this was many years ago when dev jobs were easy to come by, I had 3 offers in a week.
"Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."
Source: Wikipedia(Emphasis mine)
I think online at least, this has become fairly normal for many of the most charged words/accusations/charges.
The problem with doing this, of course, is that when the word is needed for something it actually represents, you run the risk of people thinking you're talking about something mundane.
Wrong. You can read Umberto Eco's essay "Ur-Fascism" to have a more informed view.
I have seen many arguments supporting the destructionists (aka trumpists) from that exact vein. From the longstanding abstract "immigrants come here and sit on welfare" and "we need to take care of our own" to specifically supporting the recent pogroms as necessary before we can do things like fix healthcare or restore employees' negotiating power. So even by your definition, it seems eminently reasonable to describe the destructionist movement as fascist. And the point isn't to use the label, drop the mic, and consider the topic solved. But rather it's to have a basic dialogue so that we can discuss constructive solutions for opposing it - and that's basically how it's being used in the original post, regardless of your tone policing.
(On the idea itself, I'd say it's preposterous to think that the corpos that drive our politics are going to suddenly switch to supporting socialism if only we racially purify our society, but there are unfortunately a lot of true believers. I'd say the dynamic is more like the only point of the socialist aspect is to assuage people's consciences for having rejected their empathy here and now)
Policymakers supposedly work for us/the people and they could have made surveillance ad tech expensive and thereby severely limited it, but
> "Policymakers failed us because cops and spies hate privacy laws and lobby like hell against them. Cops and spies love commercial surveillance, because the private sector's massive surveillance dossiers are an off-the-books trove of warrantless surveillance data that the government can't legally collect."
It has become acceptable to misuse words, like "fascist" or "communist" in political contexts, to the detriment of rational and fruitful discourse. Often a false equivalence is drawn between denying something is "fascist" or "communist" and denying something is bad. This is false. Something can be bad without being fascist or communist.
There is plenty to be critical about in American politics and in tech, but calling everything you don't like "fascist" or "communist" isn't helpful. These seem to be go-to words used by those "defending" what is now a crumbling postwar liberal democratic order, i.e., anything that seems at odds with this order is reflexively called one of these two terms, depending on which faction of the American uniparty you align with.
Please explain how the trumpist movement significantly differs from most points of Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism. Because in my estimation, the word is entirely appropriate for what we're facing and people are shouting it down because they don't like the uncomfortable truth.
I'm open to changing my mind, especially if there is a better term that more accurately describes what we're facing. Because the dynamic isn't merely "crumbling postwar liberal democratic order", but rather a particular overly-simplistic reaction to that crumbling.
[1]: https://lobste.rs/
Job postings, Show HN, and other ads on HN are contextually relevant to a majority of the users and require no tracking to present.
This post appears to be about the former, not the later.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/welfare-cuts...