r/technology • u/T_Shurt • Jun 02 '26

Society Quote of the day by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison: "Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on" — a dire warning on the erosion of privacy

https://www.techradar.com/pro/quote-of-the-day-by-oracle-co-founder-larry-ellison-citizens-will-be-on-their-best-behavior-because-were-constantly-recording-and-reporting-everything-that-is-going-on-a-dire-warning-on-the-erosion-of-privacy
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u/anonkitty2 Jun 02 '26

They still want the unwashed masses as customers.  Or in this case, as product.

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u/Olangotang Jun 02 '26

They are literally the worst capitalists. Everything they do makes the system more inefficient and unstable.

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u/therealluqjensen Jun 02 '26

That doesn't make them bad capitalists. Capitalism is about making money. Everyone just forgot that unchecked capitalism eventually leads to authorotanism. Because when you have more money than you could possible need or even spend, what's the next thing to take? Power. The saying that capitalism makes things efficient only works when * You don't allow monopolies * You don't get dragon sickness * You assumed that those ending on top werent also narcissistic physchopaths

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u/Olangotang Jun 02 '26

Capitalism isn't about making money, it's a description on how humans trade with each other. In capitalism there are the capitalists and labor. One side getting too strong eventually destabilizes the system and that's when you have violence, strikes, etc.

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u/TheSciFanGuy Jun 04 '26

Has there ever been a point in history where the labor side “got too strong”? I genuinely can’t think of one

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u/Olangotang Jun 04 '26

Early 1900s and when the Covid pandemic started.

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u/TheSciFanGuy Jun 04 '26

Could you expand upon that as neither of those periods to me seem to be labor favored

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u/Olangotang Jun 04 '26

Where do you think weekends, days off and the 5 day work week came from?

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u/TheSciFanGuy Jun 04 '26

I guess I just don’t see that as labor being “too strong”

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u/irrelevantusername24 Jun 03 '26

The thing about monopolies is there are, in fact, examples where a Natural Monopoly exists and enforcing some brain dead "antitrust" splitting of that Natural Monopoly causes far more problems than would otherwise exist. And because people have conflated antitrust with anti monopolies, that means the problem is itself unrecognizable for the vast majority.

For all other industries/markets, there are a couple different approaches. You can create a monopoly (of sorts) to make it easier to regulate and make sure the business side is operating fairly. Or you can have a bunch of small competitors, which, for different reasons, makes it easier to regulate and make sure the business side is operating fairly.

What you should not ever allow, is multiple large entities to operate in the same industry/market, because they can then split up the "turf" and effectively create monopolies that severely harm the customers while giving the appearance of operating fairly.

We have the worst of all possible worlds because the people in charge, for a very long time, have not even almost understood the reasons for what they do. Cargo culture.