Curt Doolittle

Theme: Institution

  • Professor Who Coined Term ‘Net Neutrality’ Thinks It’s Time To Break Up Facebook

    Professor Who Coined Term ‘Net Neutrality’ Thinks It’s Time To Break Up Facebook (theverge.com http://theverge.com )

    Best known for coining the phrase “net neutrality” and his book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, Wu has a new book coming out in November called The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. In it, he argues compellingly for a return to aggressive antitrust enforcement in the style of Teddy Roosevelt, saying that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other huge tech companies are a threat to democracy as they get bigger and bigger. “We live in America, which has a strong and proud tradition of breaking up companies that are too big for inefficient reasons,” Wu told me on this week’s Vergecast. “We need to reverse this idea that it’s not an American tradition. We’ve broken up dozens of companies.”

    “I think if you took a hard look at the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, the argument that the effects of those acquisitions have been anticompetitive would be easy to prove for a number of reasons,” says Wu.

    And breaking up the company wouldn’t be hard, he says. “What would be the harm? You’ll have three competitors. It’s not ‘Oh my god, if you get rid of WhatsApp and Instagram, well then the whole world’s going to fall apart.’ It would be like ‘Okay, now you have some companies actually trying to offer you an alternative to Facebook.’”

    Breaking up Facebook (and other huge tech companies like Google and Amazon) could be simple under the current law, suggests Wu.

    But it could also lead to a major rethinking of how antitrust law should work in a world where the giant platform companies give their products away for free, and the ability for the government to restrict corporate power seems to be diminishing by the day.

    And it demands that we all think seriously about the conditions that create innovation. “I think everyone’s steering way away from the monopolies, and I think it’s hurting innovation in the tech sector,” says Wu.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-09-06 23:46:00 UTC

  • Everyone thinks they have a brilliant understanding of the optimum political ord

    Everyone thinks they have a brilliant understanding of the optimum political order until you sit down and write a constitution, and the institutions, processes, and regulations for every one of the ‘markets’. It’s like anything else. You think you know what you’re taking or thinking about until you write it down.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-09-06 16:38:00 UTC

  • POWER. It’s actually hard to understand how you can hold that position. THEY HAV

    POWER. It’s actually hard to understand how you can hold that position. THEY HAVE POWER. Period. They have demographic power. They have institutional power. they have cultural power. they have academic power.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-09-06 15:24:09 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1037723133447483392

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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1037710201158348802

  • September 6th, 2018 4:38 PM [E]veryone thinks they have a brilliant understandin

    September 6th, 2018 4:38 PM

    [E]veryone thinks they have a brilliant understanding of the optimum political order until you sit down and write a constitution, and the institutions, processes, and regulations for every one of the ‘markets’. It’s like anything else. You think you know what you’re taking or thinking about until you write it down.

  • September 6th, 2018 4:38 PM [E]veryone thinks they have a brilliant understandin

    September 6th, 2018 4:38 PM

    [E]veryone thinks they have a brilliant understanding of the optimum political order until you sit down and write a constitution, and the institutions, processes, and regulations for every one of the ‘markets’. It’s like anything else. You think you know what you’re taking or thinking about until you write it down.

  • REPEAT. PLS FRIEND OTHERS IN THE INSTITUTE TO KEEP THE INFORMATION FLOWING

    REPEAT. PLS FRIEND OTHERS IN THE INSTITUTE TO KEEP THE INFORMATION FLOWING

    Source date (UTC): 2018-09-05 13:26:00 UTC

  • It’s Time To Break Up Facebook

    Professor Who Coined Term ‘Net Neutrality’ Thinks It’s Time To Break Up Facebook (theverge.com) Best known for coining the phrase “net neutrality” and his book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, Wu has a new book coming out in November called The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. In it, he argues compellingly for a return to aggressive antitrust enforcement in the style of Teddy Roosevelt, saying that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other huge tech companies are a threat to democracy as they get bigger and bigger. “We live in America, which has a strong and proud tradition of breaking up companies that are too big for inefficient reasons,” Wu told me on this week’s Vergecast. “We need to reverse this idea that it’s not an American tradition. We’ve broken up dozens of companies.” “I think if you took a hard look at the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, the argument that the effects of those acquisitions have been anticompetitive would be easy to prove for a number of reasons,” says Wu. And breaking up the company wouldn’t be hard, he says. “What would be the harm? You’ll have three competitors. It’s not ‘Oh my god, if you get rid of WhatsApp and Instagram, well then the whole world’s going to fall apart.’ It would be like ‘Okay, now you have some companies actually trying to offer you an alternative to Facebook.’” Breaking up Facebook (and other huge tech companies like Google and Amazon) could be simple under the current law, suggests Wu. But it could also lead to a major rethinking of how antitrust law should work in a world where the giant platform companies give their products away for free, and the ability for the government to restrict corporate power seems to be diminishing by the day. And it demands that we all think seriously about the conditions that create innovation. “I think everyone’s steering way away from the monopolies, and I think it’s hurting innovation in the tech sector,” says Wu.

  • It’s Time To Break Up Facebook

    Professor Who Coined Term ‘Net Neutrality’ Thinks It’s Time To Break Up Facebook (theverge.com) Best known for coining the phrase “net neutrality” and his book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, Wu has a new book coming out in November called The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. In it, he argues compellingly for a return to aggressive antitrust enforcement in the style of Teddy Roosevelt, saying that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other huge tech companies are a threat to democracy as they get bigger and bigger. “We live in America, which has a strong and proud tradition of breaking up companies that are too big for inefficient reasons,” Wu told me on this week’s Vergecast. “We need to reverse this idea that it’s not an American tradition. We’ve broken up dozens of companies.” “I think if you took a hard look at the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, the argument that the effects of those acquisitions have been anticompetitive would be easy to prove for a number of reasons,” says Wu. And breaking up the company wouldn’t be hard, he says. “What would be the harm? You’ll have three competitors. It’s not ‘Oh my god, if you get rid of WhatsApp and Instagram, well then the whole world’s going to fall apart.’ It would be like ‘Okay, now you have some companies actually trying to offer you an alternative to Facebook.’” Breaking up Facebook (and other huge tech companies like Google and Amazon) could be simple under the current law, suggests Wu. But it could also lead to a major rethinking of how antitrust law should work in a world where the giant platform companies give their products away for free, and the ability for the government to restrict corporate power seems to be diminishing by the day. And it demands that we all think seriously about the conditions that create innovation. “I think everyone’s steering way away from the monopolies, and I think it’s hurting innovation in the tech sector,” says Wu.

  • NIETZSCHE VS DOOLITTLE : Critique vs Science. Value vs Truth. Inspiration vs Ins

    NIETZSCHE VS DOOLITTLE : Critique vs Science. Value vs Truth. Inspiration vs Institutions.

    I need to address this issue again for the little boys in the audience.

    What I take from Nietzsche is his attack on supernaturalism, and submission, and his attempt to restore classicism – which is also what I am also trying to do: discover our origins (I have), and solve the institutional problem (i think I have) of restoring them.

    Nietzsche created a Critique of semitic religion, and tried to articulate and express the ethic of the classical tradition (heroism, the dominance of man over nature) but was unable to solve the problem of how – just as many post-darwinist were. Unfortunately the abrahamists have nearly won again with marxism, feminism, and postmodernism. And they have won by continuing his technique: abrahamic critique.

    —“Nietzsche’s thought after Hegel was to incorporate Evolution and to reverse everything possible in prior thinkers. So he reverses Hegel by searching for a way for the Noble to have self-consciousness. He reverses Schopenhauer by attempting to be positive about life and its prospects. He reverses Wagner by rejecting the Christianization of the Pagan mythologies. Of course he then reverses many long held beliefs that were unquestioned within the western worldview such as the necessity to kow tow to Christianity as a religious belief system. … So basically Nietzsche went after as many Sacred Cows of the European tradition as he could”— Kent Palmer

    I systematically attack all our sacred cows and falsehoods – just as he did. Not for VALUE but for TRUTH. I look for everything FALSE not everything we VALUE. However, I attempt to restore classicism through formal INSTITUTIONS rather than the usual german sophomoric philosophy that is little other than a desperate attempt to restore the ‘woo’

    of christian submission by rational sophistry rather than supernatural sophistry.

    As for ‘spirit’ I see nietzsche’s ‘spirit’ as a choice, and an individual choice, not a truth,or a political movement, or an institutional solution – and I see nietzsche as having failed to discover a solution. And worse, I find his silly german ‘suffering'(struggling) abhorrent – the voice of the weak. The strong do not struggle they just do.

    Nietzsche was prescient precisely because he FAILED. As did all german thinkers – desperate provincial romanticists appealing to the heartstrings of the pubescent.

    I see nietzsche as ‘weak’. A polemicist. Like say, Rand, he is a gateway that gives you permission to abandon traditional religion, just as rand is a gateway to abandon traditional political ethics. But they are … childish … works by childish people. Which is fine, because we all work at some level of sophistication available to us at our own stage of maturity.

    Nietzsche’s rant against his status who is nothing more than what all adolescent men do: express their identities and autonomy as unbound by parental debts, when they reach some level of agency.

    But in the end, he just was an insightful polemicists that failed to provide a solution other than infinite skepticism and a return to a celebration of life. A pair of sentiments otherwise politically inactionable.

    Nietzsche practiced critique: he remained an abrahamist. He offered us nothing to supplant the past. And understood the classical civilization only in silly germanic romantic and literary terms – rather than the tedious administration of half domesticated man by the use of military, law, bureaucracy, commerce, and education.

    Rome was the adult that athens matured into.

    We are only now, right now, restoring the state of development at which rome fell.

    —

    Source date (UTC): 2018-09-05 09:47:00 UTC

  • Nietzsche vs Doolittle

    September 5th, 2018 9:47 AM NIETZSCHE VS DOOLITTLE : Critique vs Science. Value vs Truth. Inspiration vs Institutions. I need to address this issue again for the little boys in the audience. What I take from Nietzsche is his attack on supernaturalism, and submission, and his attempt to restore classicism – which is also what I am also trying to do: discover our origins (I have), and solve the institutional problem (i think I have) of restoring them. Nietzsche created a Critique of semitic religion, and tried to articulate and express the ethic of the classical tradition (heroism, the dominance of man over nature) but was unable to solve the problem of how – just as many post-darwinist were. Unfortunately the abrahamists have nearly won again with marxism, feminism, and postmodernism. And they have won by continuing his technique: abrahamic critique. —“Nietzsche’s thought after Hegel was to incorporate Evolution and to reverse everything possible in prior thinkers. So he reverses Hegel by searching for a way for the Noble to have self-consciousness. He reverses Schopenhauer by attempting to be positive about life and its prospects. He reverses Wagner by rejecting the Christianization of the Pagan mythologies. Of course he then reverses many long held beliefs that were unquestioned within the western worldview such as the necessity to kow tow to Christianity as a religious belief system. … So basically Nietzsche went after as many Sacred Cows of the European tradition as he could”— Kent Palmer I systematically attack all our sacred cows and falsehoods – just as he did. Not for VALUE but for TRUTH. I look for everything FALSE not everything we VALUE. However, I attempt to restore classicism through formal INSTITUTIONS rather than the usual german sophomoric philosophy that is little other than a desperate attempt to restore the ‘woo’ of christian submission by rational sophistry rather than supernatural sophistry. As for ‘spirit’ I see nietzsche’s ‘spirit’ as a choice, and an individual choice, not a truth,or a political movement, or an institutional solution – and I see nietzsche as having failed to discover a solution. And worse, I find his silly german ‘suffering'(struggling) abhorrent – the voice of the weak. The strong do not struggle they just do. Nietzsche was prescient precisely because he FAILED. As did all german thinkers – desperate provincial romanticists appealing to the heartstrings of the pubescent. I see nietzsche as ‘weak’. A polemicist. Like say, Rand, he is a gateway that gives you permission to abandon traditional religion, just as rand is a gateway to abandon traditional political ethics. But they are … childish … works by childish people. Which is fine, because we all work at some level of sophistication available to us at our own stage of maturity. Nietzsche’s rant against his status who is nothing more than what all adolescent men do: express their identities and autonomy as unbound by parental debts, when they reach some level of agency. But in the end, he just was an insightful polemicists that failed to provide a solution other than infinite skepticism and a return to a celebration of life. A pair of sentiments otherwise politically inactionable. Nietzsche practiced critique: he remained an abrahamist. He offered us nothing to supplant the past. And understood the classical civilization only in silly germanic romantic and literary terms – rather than the tedious administration of half domesticated man by the use of military, law, bureaucracy, commerce, and education. Rome was the adult that athens matured into. We are only now, right now, restoring the state of development at which rome fell.