Governments have a degree of democratic accountability - the current US government could be kicked out or not in 4 years depending on the will of the people.
Billionaires paying very little tax are forever ( certainly more than a lifetime as the wealth is handed down over generations ).
Apple - have you used a Macbook recently - their ARM based product line is a big step forward - sure it's not self driving cars - but it's been the biggest jump in standard PC's for quite a while and has required innovation up and down the stack.
Microsoft - No new bets. Really? Their OpenAI deal and integrating that tech into core products?
Amazon - No new bets? It's still trying drone delivery, and it's also got project Kuiper - moving beyond data centres to providing the network
There was some innovation - and some good products ( MS office stands out for me ) - however what MS did relentlessly well, as you mentioned, was sales, distribution and developers.
They also leveraged their relationship with Intel to the max - Wintel was a phrase for a reason. Companies like Apple faltered, in part, in the 90's because of hardware disadvantages.
Often their competitors had superior products - but MS still won through - in part helped by their ruthlessly leveraging of synergies across their platforms. ( though as new platforms emerged the desire to maximise synergies across platforms eventually held them back).
That aggressive, Windows everywhere behaviour, is what united it's competitors around things like Java, then Linux and open source in general which stopped MS's march into the data centre, and got regulators involved when they tried to strangle the web.
The idea that if your ovens break or even worse the lifts that carry the nukes - and you can't repair yourself, but rather have to fly a contractor out is clearly absurd.
My guess is that - like all competent people - the US Navy staff is fighting a constant battle against short-term managerialism. Occasionally stuff will slip through because of time and financial pressures. I can practically imagine the conversation:
"We need this contract to be signed and rolled out next month"
"But our decision process alone takes a month!"
"Decision takes a month?! How hard can it be? What do we need to do to expedite this?"
"Well, I guess we can outlay some of the review work to the interns"
Not sure about this specific example, but are we sure they had the choice?
I've been in many similar situations where all the vendors in the marketplace have the same limit on their offering. You might want on-prem for example, but offerings are getting scarce because vendors are valued on recurring revenue so they are no longer interested.
If the choice is between a locked down oven or starting an oven factory yourself, it's not easy. We have built this economy for us and it is what it is, even when it clearly is a local maxima.
Because adding in repair stuff requires the supplier to provide documentation, frequently training, a parts manifest, guaranteed 10-20 year availability of spares, and probably about 50 other requirements I don't know about.
All of which add up to a rather large contract cost increase.
Possibly this boondoggle will result in the military putting in more reasonable "right to repair" terms in the contract, rather than insisting on the gold-plated thing I mention above, but more likely it will simply result in more cost overruns.
I have a feeling that they still need to guarantee availability of spares if they fix it themselves, do they not? They still have to create documentation for their engineers, do they not?
If you repair it yourself, you have more flexibility in terms of replacing spares with newer items i.e. replacing a whole module when it a part of that module becomes hard to come by.
Internal documentation ..... hmmmm.... LOL.... Often not, word of mouth is the rule.
If there is internal documentation, it's generally pretty rough. Getting it to the point where you can hand it to external parties is a lot of work.
Or is it because nobody wants to assume responsibility?
Let's say what you really want is to be able to fix simple stuff ( replace easily replaceable parts ), and get the experts in for tricky stuff. However the contractor, who now isn't fully responsible to changes to the system, now insists that you take the full risk of your repairs ( perhaps even saying they will void any warranty if you touch the oven/lift ).
Then faced with that nobody is brave enough to say - heck fine - we will take that responsibility.
And so because the lawyers were prepared to take that risk, the people on the boat are infantilised by contract.
The other side of this problem can be that its going to be financially impossible to support the products (which for the military would be low quantity, heavy compliance burden) if they're not also able to maintain the staff who actively work on support.
If no one in the company is regularly employed to oversee that product line directly, they might be concluding that there's no actual way to support the product at the price point being negotiated.
Fair point - but I see no reason why you'd commision unsupportable ovens or lifts - these are not unique things to aircraft carriers.
I'd suspect custom ovens or lifts are more likely to breakdown than some standard industrial ones whose manufacture and design has been optimised over many years.
Just like new software is much more likely to have bugs that battle tested ( sic ) software.
Sadly the US military (like a lot of militaries) are in love with custom requirements. And there is very little leeway for negotiating them out.
So unnecessarily custom solutions are the norm.
I'd agree at a personal/moral level there is equal responsibility. However that doesn't recognise both the power and risk/reward imbalance here.
If you, as an employee did this - maybe you'd add a few dollars to your stock options over time. If your Zuck - that's potentially billions.
And in terms of downside - if you are Zuck and stop it in the company - there is no comeback - if you are an engineer blowing the whistle - you may find it hard to work in the industry ever again - and only one of those two actually needs to work.
Sounds like a typical blurring of responsibility through bureaucracy. "If Zak is a billionaire, then he is responsible, but since he essentially did nothing wrong, then no one will be held accountable." Total nonsense.
There are specific crimes, and there are specific people who planned this crimes, specific peoples who ordered them to be carried out, and who carried them out. And these people should be held accountable for these crimes. Even if they work 60 hours a week for minimum wage and would have been fired if they hadn't committed them. They should have quit in such cases, not committed crimes.
And on the other hand, if your employees, without your knowledge, somehow decided that the only way they could reach their targets was to commit a crime, why should you be held responsible for that? Even if you have 20 megayachts and your employees work 60 hours a week for minimum wage.
> if your employees, without your knowledge, somehow decided that the only way they could reach their targets was to commit a crime, why should you be held responsible for that?
Thats where "known or should have known" becomes relevant. It's your company, it's your responsiblity to know what they are doing.
No, what you are suggesting is a typical strategy of avoiding punishment and creating an opportunity to break the law. A very common strategy, used everywhere, especially in dictatorial and socialist regimes.
There is a substitution of one real crime, committed by real people, for a crime "they didn’t know, but should have" against other people, for which there is no real responsibility, while the real criminals are declared to be simply "cogs" in the system.
As a result, no one is held accountable for a crime for which dozens of people who directly committed it could go to prison for many years, because the person held responsible is a high-ranking manager who "should have known, but did not know," who himself issues "a severe reprimand" or assigns a tiny fine for it.
Thus, the entire system is drowning in crimes, the commission of crimes becomes a REQUIREMENT of the system and the commission of crimes becomes a guarantee of the loyalty to the system.
So your argument is that because the ring leaders, and the people who benefit the most from the crimes, almost always get off - we should forget about them and just penalize the people who have to do what they are told because they need to feed their families?
That would seem to be a recipe for more crime, not less.
Note i don't think anyone is saying those directly involved should get off scot-free, just that those really responsible shouldn't.
No, my argument is that the system you propose results in ring leaders escaping responsibility and people having to commit crimes in order to feed their families. Look at any socialist country, almost any dictatorship, or the work of any bureaucratic organizations related to the committing crimes.
The obligation to commit crimes in such systems arises precisely from the ability of the ring leader to take responsibility from the criminal onto himself to a significantly lesser extent, citing the fact that he did not commit the crime, but simply did not take something into account or did not know something.
> Note i don't think anyone is saying those directly involved should get off scot-free
But this is exactly what the existence of such a system leads to: the directly involved criminals escape responsibility, or their punishment is significantly reduced because most of the responsibility falls on the system and no one in particular bears full responsibility.
And if the performer bears full responsibility, there will be much fewer crimes, because in this case the performer will already know that he will bear full responsibility, that other employees, fearing full responsibility, will not cover for him, that his boss, who puts him in conditions requiring the commission of a crime, will not be able to relieve him of this responsibility by spreading it on himself or shifting it upwards with blurring. In such a system, the main beneficiary will no longer be able to demand that workers commit crimes - because no one wants to risk to become the scapegoat with no additional profits.
> ... citing the fact that he did not commit the crime, but simply did not take something into account or did not know something.
Read Sarbanes Oxley.
You can frame the law anyway you want. Not knowing can be framed as criminal irresponsibility. Also look at health and safety regulation - negligence is not a defense.
And if you think rank and file getting punished with bosses getting away scot free will lead to less unbearable pressure to commit crimes - then I have a bridge to sell you.
It's complex - that's why you have judges and juries - to make judgements.
I'm saying leaders bear more responsibility than foot soldiers - I'm not saying foot soldiers don't also have a responsibility - but 'I didn't physically do it' isn't a defence for those that gave the orders/ created a culture where it happened.
Sure, Zuck might not really known and that is a mitigation. But I think the interesting question here is what does everybody ( in the commpany ) think would have happened if he did find out? Would it have been a 'well done, that's clever/cool nod and a wink', or would they expected to have lost their jobs?
It's easy to frame laws to make it the leaders responsibility - it's their job to know - their job to act if they find out - their job to put systems and procedures in place to ensure illegal activity isn't happening on their watch.
And back to the billionaires/foot soldiers thing. Motive also matters - if people did it because of fear of losing their jobs that's a mitigating factor - if people materially benefited to the tune of millions - that's another factor. If you steal - the punishment scales with the value of the theft - same principal - if you want the law to be a deterrent then the punishment has to fit the crime. A fine of 1 million isn't going to stop Zuck doing it again is it?
That's part of the crime. Of course, the one who gave the order must bear responsibility. It's just that if the subordinate also bears full responsibility, there is a high probability that there will be no order to commit a crime, because everyone will expect that there will be no criminal ready to commit the crime.
>what does everybody ( in the commpany ) think would have happened if he did find out?
Why is this important? A crime has been committed. The people who committed it must be held accountable. The lack of responsibility of the direct criminals allows for the existence of a system where the commission of crimes is not punished, employees cover up each other's crimes, and those who refuse to commit them are fired. Not the other way around.
>It's easy to frame laws to make it the leaders responsibility
Where are the examples?
>it's their job to know
Yes, and this is exactly the substitution that occurs: instead of responsibility for a real crime, there is responsibility for a poorly performed job. A great system for a leader to use to get his subordinates to commit crimes for his own benefit.
>if people did it because of fear of losing their jobs
Then they should bear more serious responsibility than those who committed the same crime for personal profit.
Because this is already organized crime, more dangerous for society and more protected from law enforcement agencies. Therefore, the direct perpetrator of the crime, the one who gave the order to commit the crime and those who tried to cover up the criminals - should be considered an organized criminal group, with all the consequences.
And Zuc, if he did not order the crimes to be committed - it would be great for him to get a brand new mega-yacht. So that the next time he starts winking strangely or giving out KPIs that are easiest to achieve by committing crimes - people would think with their own heads, and not start engaging in organized criminal activities.
Because leadership is important and is why things like this keep happening in companies like Meta and are not a regular occurrence in companies say like Apple ( despite the laws for the rank and file being the same.... )
> Where are the examples?
Health and safety legislation. Sarbanes Oxley ( after Eron and the bosses getting off ).
I don't understand why you are so keen to give Meta leadership a free pass.
> Companies have no soul. They are, by design, just chasing revenue. Everything else is just a risk to be factored.
I disagree - companies are set up/run by people, and those people define company culture/ company culture reflects those people.
Not all companies, even big ones, are the same.
To make that concrete - if Mark Zuckerberg found out about the above activity and was appalled and sacked everyone involved that would send out a very strong signal.
Note this particular method can't be a rogue one man job - it requires coordination across multiple parts of the Meta stack - senior people had to know - which would point to a rotten culture at Meta emanating from the top.
> To make that concrete - if Mark Zuckerberg found out about the above activity and was appalled and sacked everyone involved that would send out a very strong signal.
We know from another case that the opposite culture is true: when told to break the law and use copyrighted material, the engineers feel uneasy - they were not stupid and understood what they were going to do, and for a similar-in-nature-but-a-few-orders-of-magnitude-smaller things Aaron Schwarz was facing prison time. So they expressed their concerns upwards but they were told to proceed anyway.
This is a grey area. Yes people are people, but when they work for corporations they are given a green light to do things that they normally morally wouldnt do. The ability to blame it on superiors, brush it under the carpet, or hide evidence amongst billions of pieces of normal data allow 'People' to make abhorrent decisions in the best interest of making the company money. These decisions may even be incentivised by bonuses etc.
People are human beings, and we are all prone to bias and bribery nwhen big sums of cash are dangled in front of us.
There is nothing special about a company in what you say - you could say the same thing about a church or a protest group - or any other grouping of people.
And yes, the leaders of a company/protest group/church might have more influence on the moral choices of it's members than the rank and file than others - but they are also people too.
A company isn't magical with an existence outside the people that define the systems, processes, and perform the work.
Sure if you are flipping burgers in famous burger chain you are following very clearly defined rules as part of a bigger system - but a person designed that system - intentionally - and people manage and maintain it.
When an insurance company executive decided to start screwing consumers a bit less, a board member initiated a lawsuit against him and the company. The system corrects for errors, and individual choices to do better are exactly such an error.
No, companies indeed have no soul. This is all about perverse incentives. While companies are setup/run by people, the (publicly owned) company as a whole only has one incentive: profit. If any person on the inside stands against that, they won't stand long. Investors, executives whose pay depend on it, etc. will make sure of that.
So the problem here is to transform a moral incentive into a financial one. A strong outside regulator who will stand its ground can do this, by imposing a meaningful financial penalty to punish the legal/moral transgression. This is why regulations and regulators with teeth are vital in a capitalist system.
I'm not holding my breath here. Regulatory capture is a thing. OTOH, Trump's undiplomatic approach to the EU may wind up costing Meta. We'll see.
> If any person on the inside stands against that, they won't stand long. Investors, executives whose pay depend on it, etc. will make sure of that.
Not in my experience. Even investors are people too ( or the investment companies reflect the values of the people running it ).
Sure there are people who believe the only role of a company is to make money ( eg Milton Friedman ). However that's an opinion - not a fact.
Other people have different views and run their companies, or place their investments, accordingly.
Even if you believe all that matters is the bottom line - you still might take the view that doing reputational damaging stuff like this is bad for the long term bottom line.
That's not to say that I don't agree with you that companies will face pressure over the bottom line, and outside regulation is absolutely important. However you should realise that part of running a large public company is aligning your investors to how you want to operate. If you want to take a long term ethical stand then you attract those type of investors and try and get rid of the short term money men.
>This is why regulations and regulators with teeth are vital in a capitalist system.
Why do you separate regulators from describing incentive system? The incentive system is also woven into them, and if anything, the incentives for regulators go in a much more sinister direction than for any capitalist company.
Profit-seeking companies are forced to satisfy customers that have their economic freedom. But what about regulators? Their primary incentive is to remain in a position of power, their primary tool for achieving their goals is forcing.
The economic freedom of all agents is a powerful disincentive. And even with it, we see abuses by capitalist companies. But what about regulators, whose disincentives are much weaker, and whose main tool, moreover, allows them to destroy even this weak disincentives? Fixing capitalism's incentives with regulators is like curing a cold with cancer.
The standard Ubuntu+Gnome desktop crashes far too often.
Now I have no idea whose fault that is ( graphics driver, window system, or desktop code - or all three ) - but it's been a persistent problem for linux 'desktops' over many many years.
Imho the bright side is that this has solutions and it is getting better.
Linux can be very stable, look at servers to android or even steam deck. It's mostly hardware lottery that means it comes down to hw companies support.
The kernel is stable, the desktop ( in my experience ) is not.
I suspect a lot of the problem is in the graphics drivers - they just don't get the love and attention that happens for Windows, and definitely not the Mac ( where they intentionally keep the number of things they need to support low ).
Yep - bottom line you just use a protocol you know the firewall won't/can't block.
In theory you don't even need anything in the payload - you could put information in the timing of the DNS requests a la morse code....
HTTP is the obvious other one - with much more options for somebody to exfiltrate data - you can think of ways where you don't even need an evil domain.
For example - you could exfilrate data via hackernews comments!
As far as I can see, the only thing you can do in the end is to make it harder to do easily, and then monitor unusual activity - and hope that is enough to stop large scale exfiltration, as small scale is impossible to stop.
Billionaires paying very little tax are forever ( certainly more than a lifetime as the wealth is handed down over generations ).
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