Comment by jamwil

3 years ago

Surveillance capitalism is several orders of fucked up, but to call it tyranny is pretty dismissive of the plight of people living under actual tyranny.

I understand Tyranny as abusing your power in a manner thats cruel, unreasonable, hypocritical and unaccountable.

Like you could have a tyranical father, it's not exclusive to Gulags

Maybe it's not dismissive. Both are evil on a spectrum. One does not negate the plightgs of the other.

  • > it's not dismissive. Both are evil on a spectrum. One does not negate the plightgs [sic] of the other.

    There are generational labor camps in North Korea and a litany of horrible ongoing civil wars in Africa. They are evil. So is industry pushback against unleaded aviation fuel [1][2]. But comparing the evils of the civil war in Somalia to those of leaded avgas is, at best, pointless.

    [1] https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/findings-county-commiss...

    [2] https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/20/aviation-lead-fuel-...

    • No one has compared them except you. Using a word doesn't automatically mean someone is equating everything under the umbrella. You would do better to focus on the definition of the word if you're so inclined on arguing - "cruel and oppressive government or rule.". I think this holds with the original point that Google can be seen as oppressive rule since they decide the rules, which don't necessarily align with what the people think is right.

    • Cool. I'm going to stop calling the guy who killed one of my friends a murderer, or the Sacklers. It's really disrespectful to the people who were killed by Hitler or Pol Pot.

    • Yes, but your point is? This is a thread about Google and their abuses, so it makes sense that is what is being discussed (not invalidating that there are much worse things happening in the world).

There’s a point where the difference disappears, we aren’t there yet, but in a way walking in that direction happy as sheep. Grass is green and there’s only a couple dogs around and they don’t bite, mostly, so all is fine.