Comment by Saline9515
1 hour ago
This line of argument ("think of the retirees!!!") could be used in many cases, however when is it acceptable to break companies for the greater (non-financial) good?
On a parallel, can't we criticize any decision reducing the market cap of companies as an attack on the retirement portfolios? Say, if we required connected glasses to display a red light of more than x lumens when recording, would that be ok, even if it decreased Meta's market cap?
> decision reducing the market cap of companies as an attack on the retirement portfolios
Any decision that results in a long term net loss across the entire public economy? Yes.
That's something that hurts a lot of people and that hurt should be carefully weighed against whatever the assumed benefit is. Sometimes that's worth it, sometimes it's not
But it's never OK to just hand wave with "well I don't care about that class of people so screw them"
And let's not move the goalposts. OPs proposal was a corporate breakup of massive scale, not a minimum lumens requirement.
I'm not saying that we should or shouldn't, I would like to know the line of demarcation. Splitting Meta would have a very low effect on the economy as the services are individually profitable and would continue to be operated, without the all-knowing centralized database/24h Telescreen.
At some point, similar to the camera/face recognition debate, it's about a choice of society that we want to live in. I think that's an interesting debate.
> Splitting Meta would have a very low effect on the economy
That's...I'm not even sure how to respond to that. It would have a large direct and MASSIVE indirect chilling effect. The scale would be historic.
> it's about a choice of society that we want to live in. I think that's an interesting debate.
I fully agree with you! OP apparently doesn't, as he stated he does not care about half of the voices in that debate. That's what I'm taking issue with, not the proposal to break up Meta, which is, as you said, worth a debate!