I work in education with the lowest kids, most functioning below 12 months. We had a representative visit one of my schools one day. He had no idea that these kids exist and come to school. These are the people making laws regarding state testing and school funding. Politicians desperately need to be educated!

I'll disagree, companies are led by shareholder interest, not people. the CEO? replaceable the moment shareholders want, he isn't the leader.

They don't, the company hires lobbyists. AKA people. To argue for them.

If you take that away, you take away the constitutional right of all citizens to petition their government.

What we need is regulation

The difference is, individuals can have vastly different opinions on a topic than a grouping they're in (even if that grouping happens to be a company).

Companies are essentially that, a formal representation of the interests of a specific group. That does not make their opinion any more important than a singular person's, but the opinion itself should be recognised. Nothing beyond that, just recognised, it doesn't even have to be considered.

And this is literally what I'm saying, let the shareholders loudmouth all they want, limit their ability to influence others to this only - speech. Not money, not favours, not tit for tat, not kickbacks, not bribes, speech. Let them huff hot air all they want, let them exhaust themselves, and see the world go on without giving a fuck about it. Kinda like street preachers. They're annoying but essentially harmless. Limit companies to this level instead of allowing them to ruin our planet.

And as to why let them keep this one thing: it's not because I want to hear their crap. Or that I want to give them human rights. Far from it. I just want to enjoy seeing said shareholders exhaust themselves with the sole method they have to "influence" things. I want to see them spend countless hours, countless cups of coffee, countless tears and sweat drops, on achieving nothing. Like those prank videos where they put shampoo onto people's head as they shower, an endless frustration of trying to rinse it out and it still being fucking foamy. I want to see that but on a corporate level. Because as long as they're busy trying to get more weight behind their voices, they can't go on and scheme against the world that much.

Where did I say I treat them like people? I very specifically differentiated them, drawing the only parallel between the two groups, namely that they can have opinions...