Comment by hardbass
6 hours ago
Is that a problem? Are there any special rules (genuinely curious) that allow the military to hijack the management of a private firm?
6 hours ago
Is that a problem? Are there any special rules (genuinely curious) that allow the military to hijack the management of a private firm?
AFAIK it wasn't in play here, but yes, we do allow that to a degree via the Defense Production Act
I think the answer is the military finds another vendor willing to deal, or move it in house.
It's not like Anthropic will be nationalized any more than the bankrupted auto companies of 2008.
I don't care what the military does. This is pure thuggery and abuse of the rights of private firms. Any time you contract with the government and they don't like your terms, will they designate you a threat?
In this context, that designation just means that the DOD won’t use your product and it’s suppliers can’t use your product for DOD-facing activity. That’s not “thuggery” it’s something any buyer can do. Walmart or whatever could do it too.
2 replies →
It’s not a problem. But it’s also not a problem for the DOD to decide that it doesn’t want to use anthropic or have its suppliers use anthropic for DOD matters. The DOD didn’t ban private citizens from using Anthropic. You can sell in your own terms but the DOD can also buy in its own terms.
>The DOD didn’t ban private citizens from using Anthropic.
They absolutely did. If a product is designated a supply chain risk, no one is allowed to use it anywhere in the DoD's supply chain.
That is the funny thing to me. I hate diving into politics here on HN, but this has such a rank smell to it. Trump's comments about Dario. His insane propaganda video about how we will never be communist / Marxist. In the same breath our government is bribing people with offers of $$ (the $5,000 checks) and essentially bullying to outright moving towards saying this technology is so powerful we will just have to seize it for our own use.
It is impossible to miss the absolute hypocrisy of this moment and how people and corporations are supposedly free, but if you happen to be of interest to the government they will try to casually ruin you. It has always been this way, people just haven't noticed because it flies under the radar most of the time when the govern crushes some smaller enterprise or another because it got in their way or didn't play by their rules.
It seems simple to me. Anthropic is a private company. If you don't like it fix the laws or don't buy from them.
You're overlooking the critical difference between the government-as-government and the government-as-purchaser. You have to play on Walmart's terms--which are draconian and exacting--to sell to Walmart. Why should the DOD be any different when it comes to stuff the DOD is buying or indirectly paying its contractors to buy?
Yeah, the DOD is such a huge purchaser that it can "ruin you" by blacklisting you if you don't play by its terms. The same is true about Walmart if you're a grocery supplier, Apple if you make electronics components, etc. Private companies absolutely exercise their power like that.
1 reply →
The customer is always right. It's more of a tradition.
Yeah, for national security being the biggest one. Also Congress can do whatever they want if they desired. If Congress mandated that all social media companies have to become workplace democracies, that's totally fine and legal.
We've forgotten what it means to run a society, we're allowed to change rules how we see fit whenever we want to. Only the elites exercise this power, but people have it too.
It's not good for the people. Anything that erodes the rights of companies erodes your rights. Private property and being able to run your firm on your own terms applies to everyone. Governments eroding them show they can do the same to you willy nilly.
> Private property and being able to run your firm on your own terms applies to everyone.
In theory, maybe. In reality, this is a privilege for a very small number of rich people.
> Anything that erodes the rights of companies erodes your rights.
How absurd. Food safety regulations don't erode my rights one bit, but they do erode the rights of companies to negligently poison me. I guess I'm losing the right to start a food company that poisons people, but I'm happy to forfeit that right in exchange for not being poisoned. We could extend this list of reasonable tradeoffs in which we all exchange the right to treat people poorly for the right not be treated poorly, and we all would benefit.
Except the people who want to sell poisoned food, those people will be worse off. I am okay with that.
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No, companies have routinely killed millions of Americans for profit. I do not trust companies at all. Attacking companies to provide for Americans has always benefited society as a whole and has always had vast majority of support from voters.
Also what private property? Most Americans can't afford to buy homes and are being priced out of owning property entirely.
Corporations have eroded the livelihood of Americans more than the government ever has.
There is only one class that fights against raising the minimum wage, or establishing a 32 hour workweek, or enacting medicare for all, or providing a society free of pollution and it's always been the corporate class.
There has been no dominating force that has killed more American civilians than the American corporation.
Corporations can't even regulate themselves and you're trying to argue that the true enemy is a democratic government? Come on man. These types of retorts does not convince voters (so please continue saying them). Actually go out there and do some deep canvassing.
People rightfully hate corporations because they are the last vestige of monarchs, oligarchies, and authoritarians that are allowed to ruin + destroy our lives with little repercussions.
One just has to look at the situation of our deteriorating food safety inspections (that were hallowed out by Musk + DOGE goons FYI) to know that corporations absolutely do not care about public safety over profits. Or health insurance companies that are incentivized to deny Americans life saving care for shareholder profits.
We have a sick society and it's mostly due to the unabashed influence of corporations over our lives.
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Also in other comments you seem to be under the impression that corporations should be legally allowed to do what they want with zero government interference? Why do you believe such things over concepts of democracy or regulation?
Society is allowed to tell someone no, not everyone consents to your beleifs.
2 replies →
"Are there any special rules"
Yes. Paragraph #1, sentence #1 of the US Constitution: "provide for the common defence[sic]". This is further elaborated upon in other original Constitution articles and subsequent amendments.
From that, we derive a long, storied history of things, among the more recent of which, and the operative matter here, is the Defense Production Act circa 1950.
The US is fundamentally based on the obligation of mutual military defense, and delegates the authority to call military balls and strikes, such as who will and will not be permitted to contract with the US military, exclusively to POTUS. Anthropic et al. are way out of their depth when they imagine their "terms and conditions" imbue them with some sort of military veto power in the US. Trump's action here, given his nature, is actually moderate: he could take this much further if he wishes.
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