Comment by Woeps
6 days ago
> So your argument is that Bell Labs should have never happened? It was a bad thing for humanity?
Yes! next question please. ;) No in all seriousness. that's not what they said.
> My argument is that Monopolies are trade offs. In a world without monopolies you have very little innovation in peace time. Monopolies are bad for consumers but the trade off is that they can afford to innovate and push the world forward. It's not as black and white as people like to think.
I find this argument funny, as it states: "not as black and white as people think" to then paint a black and white argument... Yes monopolies are not always bad. But one can't be serious and not acknowledge that for the most part they stifle innovation.
Also, I would say some of humanities best inventions and innovations where before monopolies. But hey, that's just my "black and white" view on history ;)
> then paint a black and white argument
I fail to see how my argument was black and white when I say there's a trade off. Can you please tell me how my argument is black and white? Maybe we have different understanding of what a black and white argument means.
I feel like this rhetorical question of yours was reductive enough to constitute B&W thinking
> So your argument is that Bell Labs should have never happened? It was a bad thing for humanity?
A person can appreciate the contributions of Bell Labs while still agreeing with the decision to ultimately have broken up the company.
I never said that a person cannot appreciate the contribution while agreeing with the decision to break it apart. The idea was if monopolies are bad an Bell Labs is the product of a monopoly in an ideal world AT&T would never be a monopoly and Bell Labs would never existed, right? That's the first part of my question. The 2nd part was kinda asking if that's the case and Bell Labs should not have existed, why is that? Was it bad or good for humanity? If it was good then why should a good thing not exist and create so many crazy innovations. Did AT&T monopoly created so much bad in the world that it offsets the good Bell Labs generated?
This was my idea but answering 10 comments I left this short and indeed oversimplified version of my thoughts. I have since edited the comment to be clearer.