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Corrupt Politicians & Extortion Money

SG854

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Here is a point I don't really see many people bring up. What if some of the buisnesses aren't corrupt. What if it's the politicans that are corrupt and buisness are just defending themselves.


That they tried to get extortion money from buisnesses, like Microsoft. Which Microsoft refused to be involved with politicians. And a few months later the Government hit them with Monopoly anti-trust lawsuits all because Microsoft offered Internet Explorer for free with their opereating system. They said it'll give Microsoft unfair advantage over the competition by offering a free web browser, and attract more customers, which undermined their competitor at the time Netscape, and which will give them more monopoly control over the market.

But it's hardly a monopoly since Linux, OSX and other OS exist. And it may give Microsoft a boost in the short run, but with market competition other competitors may do the same to out compete Microsoft. An example of them not having complete control would be in 2003 the City Governement of Munich switched from using Windows that they used in 14,000 of their computers to using Linux.



So imagine this situation but applied to game consoles game servers. What if the majority charge for internet servers but one big corporation doesn't and offers it for free. Would they then be hit with anti-trust monopoly lawsuits? Is offering free online a gaming business going out of control for monopoly control?

Microsoft refuse to lobby the governement so they were hit with a lawsuit. And now Microsoft has a building in Washington, lawyers, and they lobby the government. What if it's not big business that are corrupt, what if some are victims and only pay politicians extortion money, so that politicians and legislators won't pass legislation and use laws to screw over their business? Give me money and we won't screw you over.

 
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notimp

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What a poor man, flogging something on a youtube channel on that video.

Ok, where do we start. There is basically no what if the one side is good, and the other side is bad. They both just "are-".

And they are different "modes" of power (as is the justice system, or the executive branch (police, ..))

The most interesting principal to look into to get the relationship between politics and business is the "revolving door", the second most interesting is professional "lobbying".

Then you also ought to state - that _real_ money is only to be made in business. And with that usually comes a separate tier of influence. Politics is often just seen as sort of a base layer - but then, it depends - there are also more important decisions to be made on the political level, but those usually arent made very often (not every year, not every ten years...).

Theres also the point, that politicians are supposed to be responsible to their electorate, and their parties, while business people are not. Wherever on the good/bad spectrum you'd like to put that. ;)

Also being "corrupt" is not some absolute "no no" - it just means, that your vote or opinion can be bought. And to be honest, most peoples - can. Not to get into conflict with the law, you have to coat it a little differently - but at its heart its still part of how every system of power works inherently. Imho.

edit: Ah, one more interesting tidbit. In europe, usually we see the "state" as something thats there to set ground rules, to "protect" us all, while in the US they usually are much more positively leaning towards business, and far more often talk about state interference with regulation.

This is situated in the popularity of the neoliberal model, as far as I can tell. Not much else too it.
 
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Xzi

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Here is a point I don't really see many people bring up. What if some of the buisnesses aren't corrupt. What if it's the politicans that are corrupt and buisness are just defending themselves.
You don't? People rant about politicians all the time. And the corrupt ones don't really try to hide their corruption these days, either.

Which Microsoft refused to be involved with politicians. And a few months later the Government hit them with Monopoly anti-trust lawsuits all because Microsoft offered Internet Explorer for free with their opereating system. They said it'll give Microsoft unfair advantage over the competition by offering a free web browser, and attract more customers, which undermined their competitor at the time Netscape, and which will give them more monopoly control over the market.
I don't agree with what happened to Microsoft, particularly because nobody has followed through on that precedent with other overly-large corporate entities since it was set. Disney, Facebook, Apple, Google, and Amazon are all much closer to monopolies now than Microsoft ever was.
 
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SG854

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Ok, where do we start. There is basically no what if the one side is good, and the other side is bad. They both just "are-".
I did use the word SOME, which implies there is bad actors on both sides of the spectrum.

You don't? People rant about politicians all the time. And the corrupt ones don't really try to hide their corruption these days, either.


I don't agree with what happened to Microsoft, particularly because nobody has followed through on that precedent with other overly-large corporate entities since it was set. Disney, Facebook, Apple, Google, and Amazon are all much closer to monopolies now than Microsoft ever was.
Not specifically about extortion money though and the way I described it.

I wouldn't call apple a monopoly because Samsung exists, and other competitors exist. The moment they slip up and sell a horribly bad product they will be over run. They have to keep improving their iphone yearly to compete.

Netflix is a huge competitor to Disney and Anime can give them a major advantage. They are re-dubbing Neon Genesis Evangelion. Disney is offering their own streaming service to compete. And have to keep improving to compete with them. There are tons of others not owned by Disney, and even if they own a good chunk still not a full monopoly.

They had the same fears of Microsoft saying they will become a Monopoly, leave few choices, raised costs and stifle innovation. But computers are a lot better now then they were in the 90's. People have lots of choices with web browsers, many are free. And you're paying cheaper/same price for more advanced hardware then what you can get in the 90's. And peoples standard of living has raised with more advanced faster computers now. Our lives now highly revolve around them, especially to get information, watch video's and communicate with people world wide.
 

Xzi

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I wouldn't call apple a monopoly because Samsung exists, and other competitors exist.
Well, they're a duopoly. Which is why I also mentioned Google. Owning half, or nearly half, of the cell phone market is still ridiculous. Not to mention they own just as much on the software side with the curation of the app store.

Netflix is a huge competitor to Disney and Anime can give them a major advantage.
It's not about whether they have any competitors left or not. Disney still owns a ridiculous portion of the entertainment industry overall, including a majority of Hulu. I'm sure by now this infographic isn't even up to date, and they already needed a resolution greater than 4K to make it all readable.
 

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I absolutely disagree on Microsoft.

Also, talking about corruption?

Accenture was the "independent" consultant, that ADVISED the city of munich to get out out Linux - and even made them a handy step by step plan to switch over to Windows. At the cost of a few million.
src: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/mel...len-Ausstieg-aus-LiMux-auf-Raten-3463100.html (german)

Fast forward to 2019: Accenture and Microsoft are founding a new business group to help wealthy businesses do "digitalisation with azure cloud products" yay!
src: https://www.information-age.com/accenture-microsoft-avanade-business-group-123478888/

This - is corruption.

Also - internet as a platform (what IE explorer was all about) very much was monopolized after the browser wars (by the same company that also owned the monopoly on the OS market at the time), and had to be broken up. The way they did it was laughable to begin with, and not much more than a slap on the wrist. They drew Gates through some overly public hearings, that surely werent fun to sit through (although gates might disagree ;) :

) - but left the company intact.

The tech sector serves as a great conceptual frame to look at the interaction between politics and business.

Consultant companies, you've just gotten to know (google around PWC to take a look at another one).

Then there was the PR stunt, where all the Big Five silicon valley CEOs were supposed to meet with the US president to talk about future trajectories of the country. That pretty much showed the self image of the entire sector. And the relationship with politics (look up the articles there).

Before that, there was Eric Schmidt's pitch to "take over the US intelligence apparatus" and replacing it with google. Because they would do much better forcasting on the world scale... He even wrote a book about it (How Google Works - A book by Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg). Of course that didn't go over too well... You can google around ventures Alphabet is currently involved in as well (which is pretty much this trajectory: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/03/inside-gaos-plan-make-congress-more-tech-savvy/155689/)

Then there are the maniacal ideas to circumvent governments all together. Insert any "low orbit satellite internet" plans, or Project Loon.

Which brings us to the importance of owning transnational infrastructure. See: https://news.microsoft.com/marea/

All interactions between big business and government.

All recent. Draw whatever you want from it. :)

On the base politics level (small to medium size contracts), politics is played to no end. But then in return they can hike up fines, whenever they feel like it - which brings us to the concept of "digitalization tax".

Which is under acute debate on the EU level. And if you think about it - rightly so. Ever heard of "digitalization" being a disruptive technology and possibly responsible of making a third of all jobs in the medium term future obsolete?

Well - the big five (tech companies) don't want to pay for it, and as thus it has become a lobbying battle - and currently they are winning. Because they have money, and a flawless image.

Facebook should have been broken up. Google should have. Amazon should have. Nothing happened along those fronts. In fact currently the "trend of the time" is to create even bigger corporate conglomerates to "battle the chinese megacorps".

Which brings us to overall lines - where I'd recommend you to watch the introduction speech of Merkel at Messe Hannover:


As I've said, the tech sector serves as a good cross section to look at corporate / public power relationships.

So imagine this situation but applied to game consoles game servers.
What servers? The majority of online game session hosting is done P2P.
You basically give those companies money for nothing.

How can you "see" that? Persistent massively multiplayer environements arent the norm. And thats the only thing you need server capacity for. Every thing else can be done P2P, so it is done P2P. Another way to look at it is, that on the PC you dont pay for online play. And game prices are lower. And there is still a business, and you still have the same, or better online experiences as a result. What do you think you are paying money for exactly? So Epic (Fortnight) can make a living?

see for example: h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jht8LTe_mpI
 
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WD_GASTER2

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Here is a point I don't really see many people bring up. What if some of the buisnesses aren't corrupt. What if it's the politicans that are corrupt and buisness are just defending themselves.


given the long history and countless examples of big business doing really crooked and or morally objectionable things in this country... I have a hard time feeling sympathy for big faceless corporations getting some of their own medicine every once in a while (not that it justifies it.... its just really hard to care)
 
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SG854

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given the long history and countless examples of big business doing really crooked and or morally objectionable things in this country... I have a hard time feeling sympathy for big faceless corporations getting some of their own medicine every once in a while (not that it justifies it.... its just really hard to care)
What if they are a corporation or a business that did no harm? I noticed a lot of things people complain as corrupt business practices are not actually corrupt. Like having prices too high! Like a business in a high crime area that has higher prices then in a non high crime place for the same items. Even if it's from the same business chains. Are they greedy? Are they taking advantage of people? Or are the prices higher because crime is higher so they have to hire more security, more cameras, use less floor space to sell items, make up for damage costs, make up for items stolen, also worry about people going to the store less because fear of safety which lead to less items sold.

Some stores can freely put out items in the front of the store without having to worry about it getting stolen and maximize store space, while some can't and less items are on display to be sold. So they raise their prices to make up for this loss or they'll go out of business. Not many stores will be open in that area because of high crime and people will complain about a food dessert in the case of markets.

The "greedy" store actually makes less then a different store that sells the same items for less. Because of higher turnover rates from the cheaper store since more people go to that store instead of the more expensive one. Even if they travel to a cheaper store in a different city, that's added traveling costs and time just to get cheaper items. And in no way good for people in poor cities. But you have people rag on them for being greedy even thought the more expensive store is making less overall then the cheaper one.
 
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SG854

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Or are you talking about Big Oil and Gas preventing new technologies from arising and want people to use more gas so they can make more money.

They seem to be doing a bad job of it because the U.S. leads the world and all countries in reducing Carbon Emissions. And they do a good job at debunking the Washington Post fact check. Which i've noticed their fact checkers are sometimes just plain bad. And U.S. per capita reduction is higher then any other country. United States is a big country. So using the country as a whole compared to a smaller European country is a bad metric to use. The U.S. had the largest decrease in carbon emissions. And is among the top countries leading the world in carbon reduction. No matter how many times people criticize the U.S. for having crazy anti global warming conservatives.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapie...es-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/#7a052de93535




Nuclear Power is the solution solutions to global warming, much better then solar and wind power. We just got to get people on board. Even the environmentalist people against Nuclear. Its much safer then it has been in the past. And will generate tons of new jobs which will get a conservatives attention to support a switch in power.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/climate-change-nuclear-power.html
 
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notimp

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Arguing on willpower. ;)

All this is getting to nowhere, isnt it? Arguing that politics is more bad than business because people mistake high prices for corruption. What is this, seriously.. ;)
 
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WD_GASTER2

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Arguing on willpower. ;)
Arguing that politics is more bad than business because people mistake high prices for corruption. What is this, seriously.. ;)
THIS.


@SG854 if you have never heard of corporations doing shady or illegal things and then being caught and being taken to hell and back for doing it, i do not think any number of examples that i could pull up will convince you otherwise.
 
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petethepug

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Now the question is.
What about the lt over material or waste. (That's something I can agree with.)



Numerous people have thrown or sacrificed something before. It could be considered a waste. But its like people don't get it until that ""that person."" is caught or ""captured"" for something. Like water gate hotel scandle. Nixon was arrested on the spotr beingght for banking and lawyering.




….. But that doesn't mean its okay if someone is caught. It just means they need to try better. Or harder the next time. Without exorting or distorting funding from somewhere, or something.
 

WD_GASTER2

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Now the question is.
….. But that doesn't mean its okay if someone is caught. It just means they need to try better. Or harder the next time. Without exorting or distorting funding from somewhere, or something.
problem being that at the end of the day corporations being fined millions of dollars for bad behavior are not going to change course. To most of them its money they put aside just in case they get slapped on the wrist
 

SG854

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THIS.


@SG854 if you have never heard of corporations doing shady or illegal things and then being caught and being taken to hell and back for doing it, i do not think any number of examples that i could pull up will convince you otherwise.
Never did. Corporation do, do shady things. Never said they didn’t.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

It’s about which ones, not all are bad, and not all things they do are bad. And don’t mistake shady things that aren’t actually shady.
 

WD_GASTER2

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Never did. Corporation do, do shady things. Never said they didn’t.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

It’s about which ones, not all are bad. And don’t mistake shady things that aren’t actually shady.

....and for those who do.... its hard to feel sympathy for. The end :)
 
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SG854

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....and for those who do.... its hard to feel sympathy for. Thats all im saying :)
And I’m agreeing. It’s a really complicated issue we can both agree right? Not a one fits all type of thing.

I see people complaining about certain shady business practices when they aren’t actually shady. I’m fine when they complain about actual shady things. I don’t like tax havens and don’t like money in politics.
 

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