Comment by cyphar
1 month ago
Even the smallest nations have the legal right to permanently incarcerate, strip you of your assets or even murder you if you are in their sphere of influence. I would hope you'd agree those are not powers that we should grant to large corporations...
I think it's shocking how many people Google can affect through its search algorithms (more than any nation on Earth) and yet there is no democratic system to hold them accountable.
>Even the smallest nations have the legal right to permanently incarcerate, strip you of your assets or even murder you if you are in their sphere of influence.
A nation that did that would be able to do that exactly once before everyone decides to never do business with it ever again, which they can afford to do because it's such a small market. Exercising arbitrary power is not the trump card you think it is. Hell, even a tiny nation with reasonable but annoying (from the point of view of a corporation) laws may not be worth it to deal with.
> > Even the smallest nations have the legal right to permanently incarcerate, strip you of your assets or even murder you if you are in their sphere of influence.
> A nation that did that would be able to do that exactly once before everyone decides to never do business with it ever again
US CBP and ICE would like a word with you.
Or more. If some small state decides to officially murder a US tourist while he never broke a local law, I do believe the public outcry would make the US government do more than just stop doing buisness.
Are you sure?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashog...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Omar_Assad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Sayfollah_Musallet
3 replies →
Singapore.
Kill, not murder. If the country ends your life they are doing it under their authority, not outside their authority.
Context is everything. There are plenty of instances of countries murdering people. Authority does not define murder, ethics does.
So for example the Nazis did not murder people? It was under their authority after all ...
Point being, also states can do murder.