No it's not, that's what happens when people can spend someone else's money without consequences, potentially by asking a friend what they need. That happens everywhere, all the time, but let's not pretend this is economically efficient or acceptable.
If the request for proposal had been done fairly, that page would have cost a few tens of thousands.
For all these there are protocols that could allow interoperability in-between offers, EU policy makers seem to be aware of the issue given what was mandated to Whatsapp. Let's hope for the best outcome!
It's fairly obvious that France won't do much if China were to invade Taiwan, but we can at the very least pretend that we care about their fate. It's a much better functioning democracy than ours.
There was never a scenario in which Russian tanks were to get into Paris.
Interesting how all the examples at the top are in the form of "It started here, now it's worth $xB". At least we've stopped pretending it was for anything else but money, and the power that comes with it.
Here is my insight: VALUATION is not the same as VALUE CREATION.
Put another way, the ability to accumulate resources, is not a reliable indicator of the "good" being created in the world.
When the quantitative metric of "Money" is used a a proxy for value creation, it creates serious and dangerous side effects.
This is a fundamental failure mode of modern capitalism.
Capitalism requires ethical discipline. Without it, we get runaway resource accumulation, that rationalises actions and strategies (externalisation, extraction, optimisation-at-all-costs) which cause more harm than good.
The techno-optimists (See e/acc/Marc Andreessen)[0], frame progress as intrinsically good.
I believe a more prudent approach is needed, one that is wise and looks at business from the perspective of:
STEWARDSHIP & BALANCE,
rather than
RESOURCE ACCUMULATION & PROGRESS.
While I do not disagree with all he says, and do not think technological progress is bad, you will notice there is no mention of ethics in the entire manifesto other than as an "enemy".
Philosopher Charles Taylor argues that a defining feature of modernity is the rise of what he calls “disengaged reason” [1]:
> Contrary to a Platonic understanding of reason where a meaningful order exists in the cosmos and in the soul that serves as a source for the highest good for reason to discover and conform to, disengaged reason "is no longer defined in terms of a vision of order in the cosmos" (Taylor 1989, 20). This disengagement allows reason to look at the world from an 'autonomous' viewpoint, leading to the abandonment of all 'horizons' > or frameworks "within which we know where we stand, and what meanings things have for us" (Taylor 1989, 29), thus rendering any inquiry to be independent of an overarching telos.
This idea is captured bluntly in this video (paraphrasing)[2]:
> The great innovation with modernity was to convince people that money is *GOD*. With the enlightenment *MONEY* replaced *GOD* for a lot of people
In a sense, a lot of people in the modern world treat money itself as "The Sacred"
This is not to say I am arguing that money, profit and competition are morally wrong, but rather the way it is packaged. It is often elevated to the ultimate end (telos), rather than the means.
The fundamental category error is making the assumption that:
VALUATION (or Money in the bank) = Value Creation (For The Greater Good)
As you have rightly pointed out, the "It started here, now it's worth $xB" is an indication of this worldview, where the telos itself is "MONEY"
The narration is very nice. Any idea of what the data could be? He mentions that it's legal for him to store but illegal to sell abroad and ranges from "bad to very bad".
We should allow ASML to sell machines to China. Europeans have nothing to gain from that embargo, US big tech are the sole beneficiary of it. Every US gov has been messing with our industry and we've accepted it because we collectively think we're weak: Airbus and Alstom are particularly prominent cases.
It's all here in the comments, go ahead if you're entertained by high drama people trying to convince a crowd that they're on the good side. My main takeaway is that the lady with pink hair who made Adafruit and the guy who designs Teensy seem to be bystanders in this but end up both losing.
It's exactly the same as for reducing cars in city centers, suddenly almost everyone driving a car is a crippled old lady with 3 children to drop off. When the reality is roughly 1.2 heathly humans per car on average doing a 4km trip for which a convenient alternative exists.
If a straw is a necessary tool for someone to function, I bet you they carry a metal one in their bag.
