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December 16, 2022
March 18, 2023
About "System Error" (2021):
SYSTEM_ERROR
Through out the book "System Error" the
authors dance around what would seem to
be one of the central subjects: the
failure of modern capitalism to motivate
companies to act in anything much like
the public good.
There's very little direct criticism to
markets/capitalism, etc. This is a
liberal text, not a left-wing one-- (But tribalism is
liberals, I think dislike sounding like something only that
ranting lefties for social reasons. other tribe is guilty
of, never mine.)
But on the other hand
they do critique what
they call an "optimization
mindset", and that
evidently includes
profit maximization.
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So this angle is soft peddled a bit, but it's
not skipped entirely. Here's what we've got:
"Consider that Facebook's stock price did not
suffer any long-term damage from the Cambridge
Analytica scandal in 2016. To the contrary,
it has since soared. If the market rewards
only revenue, where's the incentive to protect The word "incentive"
democracy or other values we cherish?" rarely appears in this
book. This is one of
-- Ch 1, p. 37 the few examples.
On the same page,
they quote Miton Friedman,
_Capitalism and Friedman_:
"There is only one and only one social
responsibility of business-- to use
its resources and engage in activities
designed to increase its profits so
long as it stays within the rules of
the game, which is to say, engages in I find the phrase "without
open and free competition without deception or fraud" very
deception or fraud." interesting. Deceptive
behavior is more the norm
than not in modern capitalism,
The authors of "System and I often wonder if it's
Error" comment: still possible to get
convicted for fraud.
"To Friedman,, it shouldn't matter
to a company whether it's customers The standard defense
spend all their time scrolling seems to be "You
through misniformation on a social can't prove intent,
network or watching endless online because we don't know
videos. As long as the company is what we were doing."
legally promoting that behavior to
maximize return to its investors, If we can't convict
it is doing the right thing." these guys as is,
could we change the
But what if you're running a laws to enable it?
site that acts as a conduit
for deception and fraud? What
if your business relies on the
chumps not realizing that Further: no one is *required* to
they're chumps? smarten up a chump, are they?
So you're allowed to confuse by
silence... or more likely, by
hiding the gotcha in a barrage
of noise, e.g. a typical TOS
agreement (much like the "fine
print" of legend).
They quote the C. Wright Mills critique:
"For of all possible values of human
society, one and only one is truly
soverign, truly universal, truly sound,
truly and completely acceptabel goal of Just quoting C. Wright
man in America. That goal is money." Mills seems impressively
extreme for "System Error".
This is an area where I'm inclined to be critical
of "System Error"-- I went looking for a critique
of capitalism, and had trouble finding it...
but it *is* here, if in an attenuated form.
But then:
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