If it's abstract why can you use it as collateral? You have to make up your mind, it's funny money or real money?

Because that's what we're talking about here.

I don't know how the banking system works in the US but I doubt you'll be able to buy much money with your word alone.

In theory, this would act sort of as a general purpose regulation. Instead of using the force of law to make companies comply, it uses the force of its share votes.

Of course, there are a bunch of ways this kind of scheme could go wrong too.

And we all know how efficient government bureaucrats are. I can just imagine the joys of having civil servants dictating how you should run your company.

A common refrain in the private sector, but having worked in both I can assure you that any sufficiently large organization is at least as inefficient as a government.

> I can just imagine the joys of having civil servants dictating how you should run your company.

We do that today through regulation. There are reasons we collectively want some level of control over how companies are run.

Regulations are different from a Washington bureaucrat far removed from your company having to approve your new fiscal year roadmap or plans to pivot the company

Obviously, there's room for nuance and it's not just one or the other.

I'm under the impression that an increase in company value is not an end to itself, it's a means to an end (more investment, more dividends, higher sell-off/buy-off price, increased stock price, etc - all are more probable when company valuation increases).

So why are you looking to increase your company's value?

Granted, this also disincentives societally beneficial efficiency increases.

I wonder how much of this backlash is just a result of people being propagandized to by the media’s steady drumbeat about corporate abuses since the GFC.

Texaco dumped a bunch of waste in the Amazon and refused to clean it up or pay for it. Why is this not surprising to anybody? Oh, right, because we all know that this sort of thing happens all the goddamned time.

Like I said, there's still a lot that could go wrong with that scheme, but it isn't like the current scheme doesn't have its problems too.

Ok, assuming that we're treating HN like a business and that business is large enough to have significant government voting share under this scheme:

The government voting with its shares to silence those stories would potentially be actual censorship under the US constitution, and therefore illegal. The same cannot be said about private owners.

Of course, the government could opt to transition the site away from those topics entirely, but again that's something the private owners could do too.

And none of this prevents small competitors from coming in to run those stories.

Let me turn it around: Would Facebook have more or less freedom of speech with government control?