Have you ever worked at a large company? Really the only thing that groups the whole thing together is the legal entity. Different teams within the same company are essentially different companies once you reach a certain scale. I see no reason to disparage the good work one group does, because of a different group of people they've never met before, for no other reason than they share a CEO. A CEO that neither group has ever met before.

this is a pretty simple way to absolve people of responsibility. Just because an institution has compartmentalized tasks, so that every single individual team appears to do nothing wrong, doesn't mean this actually absolves individuals, because following that logic obviously nobody would ever be responsible for anything.

It's like Kierkegaard's example of the mob who collectively intimidates but every member argues they have contributed virtually nothing, and so any sort of responsibility is simply dissolved.

Anyone who is responsible needs to be aware of the holistic system that they're part of and that they are enabling rather than just their own little world. That's no excuse.

>this is a pretty simple way to absolve people of responsibility.

Consider this menu of possible ways to be associated with a human rights violation:

- Do it yourself.

- Be a part of the chain of command that ordered it.

- Be commanded by the chain of command that ordered it.

- Be part of the same organization as the one that contains the chain of command that ordered it.

- Be a member of the society that contains the organization that contains the chain of command that ordered someone to do it.

- Be a member of another society, that could have tried to stop it, but didn't.

Where do we switch from participant to accomplice to bystander to "completely uninvolved?"

That one had already been answered:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

edit: In case it isn't clear: You just chose sides right there in your comment.

Same could be said of an industry, and economy, or even a species. We are all part of systems at many different levels. Our critics might attempt to tie us to the bad parts of our systems and our proponents might seek to separate us from those same demerits. But I think either way of looking at it is just rhetorical.

> Have you ever worked at a large company?

yes - and I've done incredibly well during it. I also know change doesn't come for free. the sad thing is the bigger the companies the smaller the spines of the individuals working there.

How much change have you effected in all your time there that you did so well? How much power over projects you deemed immoral did you have? More or less than a random person on the street? Do you feel more responsibility for immoral projects that took place in this large company than for things going on within FB or GOOG?

Effect doesn't matter, it is the trying that counts. IOW: Don't give up so easily. Every bit of freedom we have took a big struggle to obtain. We've lost many freedoms and we will continue to lose more. Our struggle is far from over. If you could have done something you are responsible for the result. People all over are counting on you giving up. Don't make things so easy for them. Make them work for it.

Do you spend the entirety of everyday dwelling on all the world's wrongs? You, right now, can go dig wells, volunteer at shelters, adopt needy children, give blood... The list keeps going. There are a hundred thousand things that you can do to help others and fix things: Do you feel responsible?

Yes, every day. Are you suggesting I could make more productive use of my time?

We all put thoughts into our own well being. When sufficiently comfortable or successful at that we start caring for people we interact with on a daily basis. When that too is a reasonable success we start doing stuff for people we interact with less frequently. At some point you can chose to go look for people who need our help, do something for the town, the city, the country, humanity etc There is tremendous joy to be had in this process and it builds character. I admire people like that.

People who don't do it are missing out. They in stead keep telling themselves they can't do anything for others knowing they are lying. The endless rationalization of the irrational takes a huge amount of time until they graduate themselves in the DIY course in psychopathy. In their ego trip they end up feeling sorry for themselves. In their self inflicted blindness to what misfortune looks like the self pity knows no boundaries. Also: no one loves me! I wonder why that is? They keep trying to spend money to buy happiness but all they get is cheap thrills. Some end up in a pathetic cycle where all they can do is expand their wealth, ignoring even their partner and their kids. They don't have time for that, they have important other things to do. I pity people like that. If I can think of some way to help them with their condition I will do the responsible thing.

There's a long history of that. AT&T used to have a stranglehold on communications and had some seriously bad practices.

But they also produced some really cool tech. Unix being the obvious one to bring up on this site.

That era is romanticized to hell (including by me), and Ritchie, Thompson, and the like are folk heroes. Despite being engineers at the subsidiary of a giant monopolistic entity.

Ultimately, for people who think the tech is cool, it doesn't matter where it comes from. In 50 years people will be romanticizing the era of the FAANG companies (more than they already do) the same way we romanticize bell labs.

Maybe the people doing the lauding are different from those doing the criticizing? I'm inherently suspicious of statements which treat a discussion forum as monolithic.

If a company like Monsanto cured cancer, couldn’t you laud that effort even if you still disagree with other practices of the organization? Things, people, companies are rarely all good or all bad. We should applaud Facebook for their FOSS projects, while, for instance, pushing back against the walled garden and other data practices.

Both companies are huge and contain multitudes; they can easily do praise-worthy and scorn-worthy things at the same time. It's worth calling them out separately rather than trying to unilaterally love or hate the whole mess at once.

That said, with FB/Google these days the bad weighs more than the good.

That right there is why runaway consolidation and Monopoly building is a very bad thing even if they don't jack up prices like Ma Bell. If the leaders of these megacorps have no scruples, the public has little choice but to take the bad with the good. We've lost the ability to vote with our money when it turns out buying a mobile phone or joining a social club which makes use of a social network ends up funding antisocial and even evil behavior by other parts of those companies.

the problem with "huge companies" reasoning is they require huge civil courage and a large sacrifice from the public to be set straight once they mess up. big companies = big damage.

just because we made the mistake to let them become this big without giving them criticism doesn't justify why we should continue treat them with gloves. quite the opposite. they shouldn't feel comfortable at all in their position - they should feel like they're being held accountable (and act accordingly whether with rebelling internally or by leaving depending on the size of their spine)

But technology is neutral and it's important to keep it that way. Giving into cancel culture and groupthink is the worst of things. Even worse that FB and Google.

Cambridge Analytica was evil from the start. Blackwater was pretty evil from the start. Yeah, companies can be evil.