When are we going to stop the nonsense to stop any disruption to any existing business by making laws against it? Just like in france recently they want to tax Google for referencing the contents of french newspapers on the basis that they are benefiting from their contents to put their ads - this never stops and the politicians are too easy to corrupt.
> They only get lobbied because there is a profit motive.
True. The only why we could get around this is if people only cared for the soiety and not themselfs. This concept was called "New Socalist Man" in the economic debates of the 1920 - 1950 but the simple true is that it is a utopian concept.
> Also lobbing takes money and it only pays if you're making a profit.
Lobbying has a return on investment like any other thing a company can do. The diffrence is that the profit that falls out of lobbying does not come from bigger costumer sadisfaction or rising demand, it comes from state privlages or less competition.
No and no; when we are sufficiently globalized and companies are taxed (fairly) by all countries. In your example, France is pissed off they're not getting a slice of the billion dollar pie because Google sits in the US. Our archaic ideas of "nations" are tied to land masses - not a great partner to a distributable service that can be accessed almost anywhere near the speed of light.
At the risk of derailing the discussion, it's my understanding that the US government is not getting much in corporate taxes from Google either, thanks to a well-established practice of tax-dodging by funneling profits into Ireland.
In the USA, technologically unnecessary government regulation of the wireless spectrum is the only reason the wires confer any sort of monopoly. If the FCC didn't exist, we wouldn't all be forced to use 1940s tech on all non-wifi bands, and our local loop to our ISP would be wireless, fast, and effectively free.
Instead, we have Ma Bell, Part II. I don't see how an evil corporation could have brought about such a situation without the enthusiastic assistance of the state.
Please, leave the wireless spectrum to the mobile devices and use the effectively unlimited spectrum that you get with wires for non-mobile devices. Spectrum is a scarce resource that really does need government oversight!
Yes, and so people would be glad to choose that. And others would prefer to pay for the content (presumably, Coursera wouldn't be the only ones blocked), much like they do with almost everything else. Is there any market where only the cheapest can sell? I doubt it.
I like how that sounds. My only concern is philosophical -- who then sets the agenda? We wouldn't be able to implement democracy without the tyranny of the majority, nor could we exalt any one minority group without the same issue. At least with a for-profit society the motivations are clear.
The first order of business in designing a democracy is figuring out how to mitigate the tyranny of the majority. Read the Federalist Papers. I wrote this a couple days ago: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4658896
To answer your question, the answer is "Everyone." The problem is that while this is technically true already (that's what consent of the governed is), the purpose of democracy is to make it explicit and transparent so that it can be criticized and reacted to.
I can promise you my love of knowledge is bright and receptive. I've read the federalist papers and the writings of many who claim to be the intellectual successors of Hamilton, Jay, and Madison.
If only the US were a democracy instead of a representative republic! But, given the standard human condition, we still coalesce into tribes. Be it based on race, religion, hometown, shared career, you name it, we form blocs. These blocs then either innately or in response to other blocs seek to gain power (heck, that's what political science _is_, the study of acquisition of power, and it's far from a solved question). So the fairy dust solution of "everyone" being the minority represented doesn't really hold true in the real world.
Thus, given these constraints, I conclude a for-profit-society is more transparent and navigable than a profit-for-society. If one were to assume that everyone else lived a profit-for-society life, then one defector would be able to manipulate the entire society to their personal aims. Though I strive to live my personal life to a more noble ideal, I cannot assume everyone else will.
Your proposal is akin to the ideal anarcho-capitalists* have, in that states compete. As I understand the philosophy, judicial systems and police forces are private and distinct. Law is common-law, meaning it's not case based, but rather takes into account the accuser, accused, and the situation. The will of the court is then implemented via by a hired police force. The issue is then when courts and police merge horizontally and vertically. You then have a _de_ _facto_ state. It's unavoidable, and the answer is "Well, you obviously can't have a society where people are like that." This answer ignores the strategic human element. One cannot even call this behavior immoral, as it likely comes about with noble intentions.
Anyway, just some thoughts. I salute your goals.
*EDIT: anarcho-capitalists (ancaps), not socio-anarchists.
> I conclude a for-profit-society is more transparent and navigable than a profit-for-society.
That doesn't follow, though. This is just as much fairy dust as the notion of everyone having a fair and equal say into "the agenda": not everyone is motivated by profit. You can pretend that they are and model them to be such, but you're inevitably incorrect.
Now, you could force them to be for-profit. But if you could do that, you could also force them to be profit-for-society. Why do the former rather than the latter?
> If one were to assume that everyone else lived a profit-for-society life, then one defector would be able to manipulate the entire society to their personal aims.
This is the problem of the demagogue, or "why direct democracy doesn't work". My ideas are an outgrowth of a proposal for education reform precisely because this is the most necessary step. The most effective countermeasure to the demagogue that we know of is a two-pronged response: (1) information saturation, such that any lies or half-truths are easily exposed and (2) critical thinking, such that the demagogue finds zirself useful only for thought leadership, but not thought determination.
And while you might imagine that #1 is being reached by the Internet, and I agree that it has made significant leaps and strides in the right direction, it is not remotely enough. The Internet does not reach enough people, and of the people it reaches, we have filter bubbles and echo chambers.
> Your proposal is akin to the ideal anarcho-capitalists* have, in that states compete.
Absolutely not. Please don't read in things I didn't say. I am not a Social Darwinist, and I'd prefer not to be lumped in with those who are. The paragraphs I wrote in my vision only outline legislative mechanisms; they do not consider changes in the judiciary or in the execution of law.
Guess we should be a for-loss society huh? Or perhaps perpetually stagnate. It's not profit motive here, it's government meddling, protectionism, mercantilism.
