← Back to context

Comment by appletrotter

5 days ago

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.