If corporations are so evil why has their pay fed my family, paid for my house and created so many amazing products we surround ourselves with. It's ridiculous. Big organizations have problems, but to pronounce them as inherently evil ignores all the good they do. Maybe you have a different idea of good in mind, in which case we'll probably never agree on anything. When people organize they can create amazing things, and that's what corporations are, an organization of people: employees, customers, and investors. And they do amazing things. Go to a country that doesn't do so well at creating functioning organizations and see the difference.
The article states that the financial industry* is the "hostile AI" not all corporations (in fact, it clearly states that even the hated "energy" corporations actually provide a product - even if that ).
Having recently re-read Dan Simmons' Hyperion series (sci-fi humans vs. AI masterpiece), I could almost see the analogy perfectly - finance is key to almost every part of our individual life, business and even political machinations. And in each, the big finance outfits are impervious, indifferent and have their own goals outside of their stated purpose.
* I'd expand slightly to include all of FIRE - finance, real-estate and insurance
> If corporations are so evil why has their pay fed my family, paid for my house and created so many amazing products we surround ourselves with.
"If farmers are so evil why have they fed my family, paid for my house and created so many amazing products we surround ourselves with" - said the cow.
I think you and the other replies are missing the point. This is by far the most prosperous time in human history. It's not like we are living in some dystopia caused by corporations. It's certainly not anything compared to unfriendly AI.
> This is by far the most prosperous time in human history. It's not like we are living in some dystopia
Believe me, I don't disagree with that. Maybe I should emphasize that, even though I live in the Silicon Valley now, I grew up under communist dictatorship in Eastern EU. So I think I know a thing or two, from a practical standpoint, about Dystopia - the indoctrination, the forced labor, the rationing of electricity, fuel and food, the permanent fear of the secret police. That - I have not forgotten, for how could I.
All I'm saying is - this golden age could be even better, far better, if it weren't for the constant skimming of the cream that goes on all the time at the top.
If anything, it's the relative prosperity that makes it unlikely that the situation will ever be fixed. People don't rise as one, in anger, unless they are literally hungry and cold, in a physical sense. That, too, I know from first-hand experience. I've lived the incandescent emotions of the rioting mob while being one of them, out on the streets, 25 years ago, back home, in the dead of winter.
But when they are more or less sated, and provided with adequate (if not highbrow) entertainment, people will allow astonishing amounts of corruption, bribery, and downright theft to keep going at the top of the pyramid of money.
Is my belly full now? Yes. Am I more or less free to do most of the things I want? Yes. But do I still see corruption and injustice at the top, to the benefit of Big Money? Yes.
I guess I'm one of those people who are strongly motivated by principle. Injustice remains injustice no matter how pretty the makeup.
'the logic of the larder'. There could never exist as many cows in a state of nature as are supported right now, for similar reasons to why the earth could not support 7 billion human hunter-gatherers. Is the cow suicidal and would prefer to have never been? If not, then the cow is right to praise the farmers.
That's horrible logic. We can make far more humans than 7 billion if we are willing to accept a bare minimum standard of living. Should we? Should the new humans praise us for doing this?
That doesn't answer the question. Given that cows could not exist in their current numbers unless they were going to be eaten, why shouldn't they be grateful?
I find it hard to believe that cows care much about the average, and there's good reason that average utilitarianism is not very popular in population ethics.
