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[–] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

I remember this quote from a reptile's lover: Expecting companies to not seek profit is like expecting love from a pet snake.

Like snake companies are not designed to love the people that feed them and make them exist. It is unreasonable to anthropomorphize them and expect anything else from them than the maximization of profits.

Which is why where companies work, we should just put safeguard rails so that they don't bite people where they can. And this is also why we should seek other arrangements for any sort of endeavours where the maximization of profit is not the correct incentive.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    unreasonable to anthropomorphize

    I agree, but exceptionally I also agree with RMS who said something like “all corporations are psychopathic”.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    That's anthropomorphization too. Psychopaths have a malfunctioning empathy. Companies don't have it. That's like saying a bird is a double arm amputee. Different beasts.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    Corporations are run by people. Those people potentially have empathy. But often CEOs are psychopathic. It’s no coincidence. IIRC, research found that psychopaths also lack empathy for themselves, which means when they fail they do not dwell on it or give a shit about their own pride. They just refine their skill move ahead like a learning machine. It is because of that propensity for psychopaths to shed emotion and be successful in business that they often end up as CEOs. The ideal CEO for shareholders to get max profit is one who robotically makes the best most calculated decision for profit. So it’s sensible enough to think of a corporation as human with malfunctioning empathy. The main difference is that the malfunction is desired and deliberately selected by the shareholders.

    BTW, for some reason I did not get a notification of your reply. I just happened to be back in this thread when I saw your reply.

    (edit) I wonder if it’s because your msg was tagged as français that I did not receive a notification. (edit 2) I had no language selected, not even the “undetermined” language choice. After setting my language to undetermined, I was able to see notifications of your reply.

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