To regulate big tech or not?

The question isn't yes or no, but how to be honest.

There's an article in the NY Times. It provoked in me the question, do we lets these avaricious capitalist harm our society, or do we regulate it communism style? Of course those aren't all the choices, but that is what is being chosen in this moment. 

How can we make people do the right thing? Government is a terrible blunt weapon. Capitalism is a terribly selfish and harmful weapon. 

The fantasy growing up for me was that if we can just educate people enough. But that's not an opinion that is popular enough and the education isn't effective enough. I'm a wreck of a person, more akin to a baseball player who doesn't get on base most of the time.

Tepid democratic capitalism will regulate it eventually, and the capitalists will throw up their arms.

From my perspective, the Chinese government regulating and taking over the social media industry just feels wrong.

It is possible for the America tech giants to work more with the government. It's kind of like the parents are out of town and the kids are throwing a party. The party will end at some point, but right now while the party is going on, they don't want to hear that.

We balk at governments trying to make companies more ethical, worry about what people in power think. We'd rather let those wild kids have their party. Even though personally we would clamp down and not let our kids go to that party, we don't want to stop it either. Even though we don't let our kids go to the party, we judge the parents for going out of town, we can't take the step and say it shouldn't happen, we can't go over there ourselves, and say this is wrong, please stop.

China has cooled the jets on Ant. Now I'm learning about something that is going on in the world. "...the authorities made clear that international bragging rights mattered less than ensuring private companies know where they stand next to the state."

China doesn't let the parents go out of town. The parents feel hampered, but probably sneak out of town anyway, somehow. 

U.S. Accuses Google of Illegally Protecting Monopoly is the Times headline, referring to coming regulation in the USA trying to reign in the wild party.

Now I'm reading another article. Was I really this interested. The control of information has made me more theoretical. I'm unwilling to clutter my brain up with goings on. I just want a vector of kindness.

Kara Swisher takes on these questions and writes about it better than me. She had a stroke recently.

Back to the original article. "Chinese state media called video gaming “spiritual opium.”" Swisher writes, "privacy and data laws are much needed globally, especially in the United States. And who doesn’t agree that we all should put down our tech devices more often?"

But there are financial consequences: "These government moves have knocked a reported $1.5 trillion off the value of the Chinese companies because of uncertainty about what will come next." China sends a government official to Wall Street to try and counteract this impression. 

China is winning the race to map the human genome. I'm not sure how that is important and the implications of that.

The suggestions is that watching regulations in China will guide how America will do it. Tech companies argue that we need strong America companies to compete with Chinese companies. But if Chinese companies can do well being regulated, what does that tell us?

The article ends: "Obviously, such regulation here needs to be done democratically, which favors the tech giants, since democracy is so slow-moving and disputatious. But, as I noted above, it’s inevitable, and China might be showing the path forward."

I've been watching Voyager, and The Borg are clearly China and/or liberal hegemony, pro-government, collectivist. Of course the Borg are terrible, but I hardly think the collectivist roads we have and garbage removal are damaged by Borg think. Isn't it a hassle when you go onto a toll road? Isn't it beautiful to just drive in America without hassle of toll roads? Where's your love of freedom now? Freedom here or freedom from problems there. You can't have it all. I'd rather have freedom from problem than the freedom to create problems. That is what covid taught me.

My fear is that the stupid representatives will not have the experience and the ability to get good advisors. I guess we'll have the usual crossover from industry to government to cope with it. Such a complex and multilayered issue. Not sure I can spend more than just now on it. That's another issue, how much attention can you make Americans pay to get a good democratic solution. Democracy depends on sluggish opinion. Of course our representatives don't have to be sluggish. We should vote for the non-slugs. I read a fascinating article about Ritchie Torres today. He's not against parents have choice in schools, the further privatization of education, people skimming off the top and getting rich in private schools. But he does see housing in progressive cities, as one of the most regressive things. He's talking a good game right now. And to not get Bret Stephens' ire as a progressive is pretty good.