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Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by mostlysimilar on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @08:27PM (#43190316)
In case you haven't noticed, the current US administration is packed full of billionaires who are dismantling all protections that keep free markets from steamrolling average people. They don't need more defense. They are winning more strongly than they ever have.
Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by bitshiftfaced on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @10:34PM (#43191048)
Why are they, in your words, "winning"? More people voted for it than against. My point is that it only seems strange to defend it if you don't personally share the value. Clearly many people who voted differently have different values, and they might say it would need defending.

To see this, suppose Bezos talked instead about how the editorial staff needed to prioritize egalitarianism. There are plenty of people who share this value. You can find a great many manifestations of this value in our society. It's embedded into our constitution and legislation. But does that mean that the newspaper would be wrong to defend egalitarianism?

Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by Terretta on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @11:37PM (#43191410)
> More people voted for it than against.

What's meant by "it"?

• 77,302,580 voted for this administration (49.8%)

• 77,935,722 voted against this administration (50.2%)

Source: https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024pres...

Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by araes on Thursday February 27, 2025 @12:05AM (#43191532)
I'd actually like to see the Greens and the Libertarians get together and run a candidate. Oliver (Libs) got 650,126, and Stein got 862,049. Put em together and you've got enough voters to actually have a reasonable chance of grass roots momentum, exponential involvement, compounding returns on capital / effort, large donor buy-ins, numbers that meet news media minima for free coverage, and long-term viability.

The Green's usually are identified as being libertarian socialism anyways, so it would not be a horrible cooperation to hang out with Libertarians and discuss how to make environmentalism; nonviolence; and social justice work with civil liberties; non-interventionism; and laissez-faire capitalism.

And then they could state that they're not a spoiler, since they draw voters relatively equally from what might otherwise be Democrats and Republicans.

Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by bitshiftfaced on Thursday February 27, 2025 @08:17AM (#43194094)
Thanks. If I could, I would edit my comment with, "more people voted for it than any other alternative" so that my comment could run ok through the HN compiler.
Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by whattheheckheck on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @11:23PM (#43191338)
Most people can't string 3 steps of a logical argument together and can't see the system they live in. They actually believe in God and they actually believe they get an afterlife... like how much more gullible can you get
Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by paulddraper on Thursday February 27, 2025 @02:12AM (#43192078)
You could even belong in morality.
Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by XorNot on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @08:31PM (#43190331)
The logical goal of any corporation absent regulation is to become a monopoly...which of course ends the free market.

They don't want a free market. They want to be free to control the market.

Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by typeofhuman on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @08:53PM (#43190440)
1. Maybe there are some (?alot) of regulations that put the government as a middleman collecting lots of royalties for doing nothing.

2. Big corporations actually like, encourage, and write the regulations because they form a moat for which smaller competitors can't cross (how is this news to this website?).

Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by mattoftheweb on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @09:17PM (#43190600)
You just described two sub-steps of:

> They want to be free to control the market

1. One of the tell-tale signs of regulatory capture is when the Government's efforts do little to control/limit a corporation. Like when they end up relegated to 'middleman' between the corporation and consumer.

2. Regulations that serve as a 'moat' against competition is the carrion call for free markets. Capitalism thrives on competition. If the only competition they face is what they allow, then they have no incentive to innovate and create value, only maximize the value they already have.

The counterpoint to #1 doesn't mean that we don't need to trim the fat... but there is a MAJOR difference between what businesses and the average–joe consider 'fat'.

That is what I think is so scary about this, there is no chance Beelzebub's idea of a free market matches my own.

Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by fsckboy on Thursday February 27, 2025 @02:11AM (#43192074)
>the carrion call for free markets

you do realize there's no such thing as a carrion call?

a clarion is a trumpet, and a clarion call is a call for urgency

I suppose with crows ("here's the thing...") you could get a carrion caw

Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by XorNot on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @08:58PM (#43190465)
This isn't contesting anything I said. If your goal is to become a monopoly, then you do what you need to achieve that with any tool available to you.

The lesson is don't let corporations write regulations, not "obviously regulations are always bad".

Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by kibwen on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @08:41PM (#43190372)
"Competition is for losers." ~ Peter Thiel
Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by typeofhuman on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @08:51PM (#43190426)
> dismantling all protections that keep free markets from steamrolling average people.

Which ones exactly?

Re:Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads ed... by ineedasername on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @08:58PM (#43190464)
CFPB