Fixed it for you.
Vaccine
- Thread starter Multi Sport
- Start date
Likewise.
Well masks were sold, or more appropriately, oversold, by public health officials as both protection and source control. The problem with the source control angle is that it encouraged people who were Covid positive to go out in public in the misguided belief that it was OK since the mask would protect others, when in reality (unless they perfectly wore an N95) it would have been exponentially better to stay home. This problem was compounded by public health lockdown policies that didn't differentiate between those that were not sick and those that had Covid.
Our legal system requires that you are considered innocent until proven guilty, whereas with our Covid policy, you were considered infected until proven uninfected. Apples and oranges, maybe, but that's how I look at it. Plus it was how we previously handled pandemics by quarantining the sick, not the healthy.
whatithink
GOLD
If you are referring to Google, Facebook, Twitter and the like, then they are not tech companies. They are advertising platforms/companies that use sophisticated tech to serve their product (you & me) and their in depth knowledge of their product (our data that we have freely given up) to anyone who will pay them for the product. They manipulate the content their product sees to maximize their revenue and the revenue of those that pay them by extension. So if you follow or click on a lot of similar content, then that's what you will see more of etc. and so on.
In short, everything is manipulated, based on their bottom line. They are capitalist companies whose goal is to maximize profit. If you don't like them, don't use them. If you don't trust their content, then don't use them.
Manipulating data is their business plan, as its always been.
Fair analysis, but you missed one significant point in that the government influenced the manipulation of the information presented by the tech companies in one direction.
Even your capitalism angle isn't completely correct in today's business environment. ESG is the hottest trend in the corporate world. You can argue that its just a marketing gimmick to improve bottom line but companies are taking it very seriously and investing heavily in their ESG platforms. Despite the fact that companies, at this point, are seeing very little if any return on that investment. In fact, companies like Disney have incurred losses in part from their positions on ESG (and I'm not talking about DeSantis questionable interference with them in Florida).
whatithink
GOLD
I don't disagree, but I see that as a commercial decision by the mega-advertising (
) companies to avoid any additional government imposed regulations on their business. They are currently pretty much self-regulating and indemnified, which means they will play lip service to whatever to remain so, as long as it allows them to maximize profit.I'm pretty "meh" on the ESG trend from corporates. It plays well from a marketing perspective. Not sure how many are or will follow through.
That said, the premise of ESG seems perfectly reasonable to me
- E: Don't F up the environment
- S: pay people their worth and treat people with respect & dignity in your company and extended through your supply chains and interactions
- G: don't be a dick and don't condone dickish things.
Nothing in it says they can't be capitalist or profit motivated, just don't be dicks about it.
That's just my view mind.
I agree with your moderate view, companies should be good stewards of their community. Unfortunately ESG goes way beyond that. If it works for a company more power to them, but I think it will be a short-lived fad.I don't disagree, but I see that as a commercial decision by the mega-advertising (
I'm pretty "meh" on the ESG trend from corporates. It plays well from a marketing perspective. Not sure how many are or will follow through.
That said, the premise of ESG seems perfectly reasonable to me
- E: Don't F up the environment
- S: pay people their worth and treat people with respect & dignity in your company and extended through your supply chains and interactions
- G: don't be a dick and don't condone dickish things.
Nothing in it says they can't be capitalist or profit motivated, just don't be dicks about it.
That's just my view mind.
They have to show you. It's how the Law of Nature works. Wake up sheep!
Desert Hound
DA
That is the problem. Their info only goes in one direction.
And while I can choose not to use their services...the fact remains that just about everyone gets their info from these few companies. As such what they do influences the debate on everything. And as gov has started to push them, that influence is being used to manipulate info readily found.
Desert Hound
DA
It is turning out NOT to be a good "investment".
People are turned off by what is being presented to them.
Sell your product. Stop pushing political agendas. It is going to turn off one half of the population whichever way they go politically. Focus on the product and service and work to improve that. People dont like agendas being shoved down their throat every time they see a commercial, watch a movie, etc.
That's what I keep telling Soccer
whatithink
GOLD
I agree. We should ban the whole lobbying industry and prohibit companies from making political donations.
Companies and their related trade orgs should just concentrate on selling their product, not manipulating the market via lobbying for and writing legislation (state & federal) and not by
WRT your generalization, I'd suggest that it's really that "People don't like agendas they disagree with being shoved down their throat every time they see a commercial, watch a movie, etc."
The chances of any of that are less than zero of course, so a pox on all their houses, says me.
There is certainly some unsavory characters and practices in lobbying which get a disproportionate amount of publicity. However, that tends to be on the handout or corporate welfare side of lobbying. Reality is most lobbying is defensive, i.e. trying to stop legislation on the local level that would hurt a particular business sector and by default the customer (although I'm not claiming that they are doing it for altruistic reasons). It's a necessary check on government overreach. Most lobbying is done by grass roots trade organizations with relatively meager means, and don't have the resources to grease palms. I'm never in favor of throwing out the whole bushel for a few bad apples.
While I would personally prefer to see restrictions on companies making political contributions, you start to tread into 1st Amendment territory and I'm a free speech absolutist. Although, I'm not convinced that a contribution cap is a violation of free speech. I'd rather see the problem addressed with more transparency.
