Philosophy Now Forum

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it's double plus moral in oregon...

-Imp

We can word the question another way, too. Is it moral for political decision-makers to force private citizens into bankruptcy, despair and suicide, by artificially inflating health risks that are actually tiny? That's also a good question.

FrankGSterleJr wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:40 am ...

This is a 'corporate law' issue that needs to be addressed. The act of "incorporating" creates a PERSON out of the company, limits their liability to the investment, and makes the ownership 'fluid' by allowing generic shares and bonds to be traded easier.

But the origin of this was meant to do these things inlight of large public works that people didn't want to be generically taxed on. Building a bridge, for instance, if done through taxes may not serve some other community and make them demand more of their governments. The bridge may favor specific wealthier commuties at the expense of the whole.

The original big one was the South Sea Trading company. The government 'chartered' (formal special privilege) ships to aid in increasing the economic and political power of England's through their fleets. But this was risky and so the idea of creating paper that could be easily traded without holding the bearer liable for what might go wrong. The 'person' of incorporating is meant to assure that the company was to be bound to the laws as ONE "PERSON". This virtual person though has the problems you mentioned about moral issues. They cannot in principle have compassion. But while the original idea had good intent, the capitalists, who believed in exploiting others, took over the dominant functioning of these entities and have extremely powerful lobbying to their credit.

They should be attacking the laws that permit this. [Even Trump admitted as much when he got elected. Paraphrased: he tried to assert his exploits in business were always known by the Democrats but they never attempted to make laws to restrict this. In other words if no law exists to prevent some behavior, the corporate exploiter believes in optimizing these absentee loopholes. And a race to profit from these assures the abusers will always exist. Note that the conservatives favor this the most and why I call out those who assert some religious highground for their hypocrisy.]

Bill Maher put a label to this form of exploiting [to Trump's behaviors that are related to the mentality of exploiting what is not formalized]:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/QA9ak5rKmOY

The way governments, especially in free market systems in general, are afraid to even attempt altering laws and even where they can, it is a cat-and-mouse game. The nature of these entities as 'persons' permits them to simply up and leave the juristictions they were incorporated in and settle their offices in Tahiti. So, instead, they target only the obvious 'sinners', like the Tobacco Corporations, knowing that this can distract people's attentions away from the real problem regarding incorporating companies. The emotional hatred makes people think that the companies are at fault when this doesn't penalize anyone but the smoker as it excuses governments to exploit them worse than the cigarettes can do alone!

But while some of you here will think this a mere fault of government (of the people), don't forget that the major abuses are due specifically to the virtual 'person' through a private governments, the management. And note that the ironic nature of businesses of the same mentality exploited the very governments for services to which gave another original reason to create the Incorporated Company!

Everyone is abusing them and no one wants to (or is able to with ease) to stop these laws regardless. I say that one way that might help is to only have a limited time for company bills of trade like stocks and bonds, etc, to be fluid and companies to lose their incorporated status when they get powerful enough to operate alone. But this backfires to. I don't know what can be done anymore. ...?...turn Communist?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 1:18 am We can word the question another way, too. Is it moral for political decision-makers to force private citizens into bankruptcy, despair and suicide, by artificially inflating health risks that are actually tiny? That's also a good question.

Since when do governments do the 'forcing' of bankruptcy? Corporation's limited liability permits them to ONLY gain. And if they are losing, the go bankrupt and pass this onto society through those beloved 'taxes' you would turn around and complain about. [It must be those poor bastards on welfare that those taxes go to, right (An example of Christian superiority?)]

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:24 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 1:18 am We can word the question another way, too. Is it moral for political decision-makers to force private citizens into bankruptcy, despair and suicide, by artificially inflating health risks that are actually tiny? That's also a good question.

Since when do governments do the 'forcing' of bankruptcy? Corporation's limited liability permits them to ONLY gain. And if they are losing, the go bankrupt and pass this onto society through those beloved 'taxes' you would turn around and complain about. [It must be those poor bastards on welfare that those taxes go to, right (An example of Christian superiority?)]

Two different versions of God. Happily, we have the life of Jesus supposed to be God incarnate, who shows by his life and example which god is God.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:24 am Since when do governments do the 'forcing' of bankruptcy?

Since 2020. We've watched neighbourhood businesses close down one after the other. We now have a plague of vacant storefronts and bankruptcy declarations, to say nothing of the human cost in misery, impending economic disaster and suicide.

You forget: it's not big, faceless "corporations" that suffer alone here. If anything, they have some buffers, and might ride it all out. But the owners, managers and employees of small and local businesses are being devastated as well. And where's the compassion for them?

For those who are interested, the following are excerpts from a September 16, 2020, Bloomberg story (by Alan Levin) headlined “Boeing Deception Alleged in Scathing Report on Max Crashes”:

… the report by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said. “They were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing’s engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing’s management and grossly insufficient oversight by the” Federal Aviation Administration.

… The [report’s] conclusions were drawn by the majority staff under committee Chairman Peter DeFazio. [It] cites five main reasons for the crashes:
 Pressures to update the 737’s design swiftly and inexpensively
 Faulty assumptions about the design and performance of pilots
 What the report called a “culture of concealment” by Boeing
 Inherent conflicts of interest in the system that deputizes Boeing employees to act on behalf of the government
 The company’s sway over top FAA managers

… DeFazio said he found it “mind boggling” that Boeing and FAA officials concluded, according to the report, that the plane’s design had complied with regulations in spite of the crashes.

… While DeFazio and other lawmakers haven’t called for a permanent grounding of the jet, the father of a woman who died in the Ethiopia crash said the report raised questions about the plane’s return to service.
“The FAA should immediately halt the recertification process for the 737 Max in light of this report,” said Michael Stumo, father of Samya Stumo. He accused Boeing and the FAA of withholding information from the families of victims in an emailed statement.

... [A] Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, was … triggered erroneously by a single sensor that failed in both crashes and it continued to push the nose down repeatedly.

... Those concerns “were not properly addressed” and the company “did not inform the FAA,” the report said.

... FAA officials have said they debated whether to include MCAS in the directive, but opted not to because it wasn’t mentioned in pilot flight manuals. …

A key finding involves a long-standing practice ... to deputize Boeing employees to act in behalf of FAA while reviewing aircraft designs. According to a 2016 survey obtained by the committee, 39% of Boeing’s Authorized Representatives, senior engineers who conducted reviews for FAA, at times perceived “undue pressure” on them from management.

One such senior engineer knew that Boeing was delivering Maxes to customers without a required alert in 2017 and 2018, yet didn’t notify FAA, the report said. The lack of such an alert was cited by Indonesian investigators as a factor in the Lion Air crash.
Both House and Senate legislation is expected to seek reforms of the so-called delegation system, which the report said is riddled with “inherent conflicts of interest.”

… The manufacturer rejected adding a sophisticated safety system that might have helped in the accidents at least in part because it would have required additional training. The company also deemphasized MCAS to the FAA as a result. In a 2013 company document, Boeing said it would describe MCAS to the FAA as an add-on to an existing system. “If we emphasize MCAS is a new function there may be a greater certification and training impact,” the memo said.
The broad failure to fully explain MCAS was a critical issue because the system was made more powerful midway through its development, but many within the FAA didn’t know and the agency delegated the final safety approvals to the company, the report found. …

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ax-crashes

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 3:19 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:24 am Since when do governments do the 'forcing' of bankruptcy?

Since 2020. We've watched neighbourhood businesses close down one after the other. We now have a plague of vacant storefronts and bankruptcy declarations, to say nothing of the human cost in misery, impending economic disaster and suicide.

You forget: it's not big, faceless "corporations" that suffer alone here. If anything, they have some buffers, and might ride it all out. But the owners, managers and employees of small and local businesses are being devastated as well. And where's the compassion for them?

Oh,..you're referring to Covid. I should have known.

I think that for those businesses that tend to vote for Trump anyways are not entities that I care to go to. They're the ones who hate any kind of compassionate services by government to go towards the poor and needy and yet don't recognize the welfare they are hoping to get in this time of need that even socialist governments would likely grant, as they had on the bailouts from 2009.

Note that the 'faceless' corporations are the lobby behind the scenes of the conservatives who also intentionally prop up those like Trump to engage in appealing to the idiocy of the smaller business class HICKS (not all of them) who adopt cult religions that praise wealth and condemn the poor and needy instead. The businesses that are intentionally going against any government restrictions tend to be the extremists of any wealth classes of any country who, if we were to be sincere to serve them, we'd have NO government and chaos regardless. I don't feel sorry for you. And you are NOT actually religious people. Those religions are contradictory and serve to encourage MORE 'evil' in the world, not less.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 2:57 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 3:19 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:24 am Since when do governments do the 'forcing' of bankruptcy?

Since 2020. We've watched neighbourhood businesses close down one after the other. We now have a plague of vacant storefronts and bankruptcy declarations, to say nothing of the human cost in misery, impending economic disaster and suicide.

You forget: it's not big, faceless "corporations" that suffer alone here. If anything, they have some buffers, and might ride it all out. But the owners, managers and employees of small and local businesses are being devastated as well. And where's the compassion for them?

Oh,..you're referring to Covid. I should have known.

The expression "health/lives" in the OP should probably have been a bit of a giveaway. What other "health" issues are we dealing with right now?

I think that for those businesses that tend to vote for Trump

Businesses can't vote. Only people vote...well, except through mail-in ballots and voting machines, apparently.

...welfare they are hoping to get in this time of need that even socialist governments would likely grant...

I haven't noticed that the poor do particularly well under Socialism.

Note that the 'faceless' corporations are the lobby behind the scenes of the conservatives...

That's ironic. It's Facebook, Twitter and Google who are on the stand right now for having fiddled things in favour of the Democrats. And you really can't get bigger more faceless corporations than those three. They're essentially a triadic monopoly, since they collude.

But back to the point: COVID measures are killing small business. Where's the compassion for those people?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:09 am
But back to the point: COVID measures are killing small business. Where's the compassion for those people?

I don't know where you are. But I'm in Canada and this is and has been offered. What it requires though to make things more effective is for the banks to do things like place a halt on interest for ALL or as many people as possible. ...the PEOPLE, not the business entities. The U.S. will be able to do this too but can't until Trump is gone. I believe State level assistances are offered though.

You mentioned the large corporations that have become virtual (or real) monopolies whose owners tend to favor the left more. ALL the political party platforms COME from some subset of the wealthy, not the poor. The difference is that for those who believe in their sincerity who get to the top in the extremely large corporations that STILL are not absolutely greedy in principle, look at the world with more compassion to help PEOPLE in general. The kinds of philosophies of those organizations that promoted themselves for the broader class of people from everywhere, will tend to be 'liberal'. Those that only LIKE a subset of people of the whole, especially those that have no compassion for the poor as valid PEOPLE, will be relatively conservative because they greedily think that profit should be placed front and center FOR THEIR OWN. Those who are more 'pure' in the kinds of extended families involved, will thus also favor a believe in hereditary rights as though what the parent ancestors did beneficially to their child generations should be distinctly allowed to deny the negatives hypocritically.

The left still consists of those who both have money and are relatively 'conservative' to their cultural beliefs. The 'democratic' minimal there tends to point to the plurally larger groups based on race or gender heritage beliefs. To me this is why Trump was even able to get in, not his normal supporters. Divisions occur on the left when those in it are 'conservatives' in mind but 'progressive' in their appeal to accept the differences of all other 'groups' there. The religions favored by the same classes that exist on the right, would be those who do not concern themselves with whether Jesus of Christianity, for instance, was literally existent other than in spirit. The emphasis there is on PROVING their compassion by example rather than threaten, harm, or eliminate those who disagree....on the same kind of average folk that the small business owners fit into of the right who don't get the fair representation to the extremes. But BECAUSE of the extremes existing these days, we are forced to look at which side has the most absurd forms of intoleration and avoid them where we can. I'd accept the 'commie' left far more than the 'nazi' right extremists any day.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:55 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:09 am
But back to the point: COVID measures are killing small business. Where's the compassion for those people?

I don't know where you are. But I'm in Canada and this is and has been offered.

In Canada, small businesses are still being wiped out at an alarming rate, and your government has run up a debt so horrendous they are refusing to tell reporters what the number actually is...and still your major cities are on lockdown, and even suburbs are seriously restricted. Canadians are miserable, tired, afraid and cold at the minute...and you know that's true. Those businesses that are surviving are just hanging on and praying for relief.

You mentioned the large corporations that have become virtual (or real) monopolies whose owners tend to favor the left more. ALL the political party platforms COME from some subset of the wealthy, not the poor.

I share your skepticism about government. But then why do you support Socialism, which inevitably means big, singular, centralized government, inevitably, as you say, controlled by "some subset of the wealthy"? And why should we excuse all those business catering to the Left, and reject all those on the right, who would at least advocate for smaller government?

I think you've failed to realize that corporations ARE people. They're not just disdainful, rich owners; they're lower managers, regular labourers, office workers, temporary staff, the loading docks, courier services, meal providers, and so on. They're aggregations of people, each of whom depends on the health of the whole corporate work structure. And "profit" isn't a dirty word: it means the same as "working capital," or "potential for growth," or "wages" or "a living," or "food in my children's mouths."

You talk as if a corporation is sort of malevolent, conscious entity, but not human. It's "greedy" and lacks "compassion," and "likes subsets of people," and it "votes," you say. But it doesn't. It's just a group of people, and does nothing other than what those people will agree to do.

But my concern is not with the corporations anyway. As I said, they often have enough buffers and sources of financing to survive. But my compassion is with the guy in the shipping department who's lost his job to COVID, or the woman who used to work secretarial until the whole office closed and everybody else started working from home, and now can't make ends meet, or the old guy in the home, who would rather see his relatives but can't because of COVID restrictions, and dies alone, among strangers in masks. That's where I'll put my compassion.

The emphasis there is on PROVING their compassion by example rather than threaten, harm, or eliminate those who disagree.

If you thought that, you'd give up on government.

Instead, you'd be a big booster of the people who are invariably leading the way in things like poor relief, international aid, medical missions, educational outreaches, prison work, addiction treatment...and when you go look at those things, what you won't find is wonderful, compassionate governments solving all the problems, but rather lowly caring folks, most of them"religious" leading the way, struggling hard to bring light to dark places, often at great personal sacrifice and without much help from anyone. And you'd be amazed at how little all the jabbering at government level actually does for those who are down.

I think you'll find that George Orwell was right: Socialists don't love the poor; they just hate the rich.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:35 am

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 3:55 am You mentioned the large corporations that have become virtual (or real) monopolies whose owners tend to favor the left more. ALL the political party platforms COME from some subset of the wealthy, not the poor.

I share your skepticism about government. But then why do you support Socialism, which inevitably means big, singular, centralized government, inevitably, as you say, controlled by "some subset of the wealthy"? And why should we excuse all those business catering to the Left, and reject all those on the right, who would at least advocate for smaller government?

Logic:
(1)Someone or ones will ALWAYS 'govern'. You cannot presume that if we have 'smaller' government that we all have MORE freedom because what occurs is that the system the the 'government' transfers power away from the majority to the wealthy.
(2)By less 'government', your conservative supporters want NO 'policing' for THEM (like no regulations) but prefer to have the system keep the 'police' to prevent the 'democratic' population from rising up against the minority. OWNERS only matter to you. And this is why I cannot stand religion since you guys use it to pretend you are just 'favored' by God, to which is indifferent to meaning you are 'supremacists' for presuming something about NATURE (via your 'god') as merely rewarding you and your loved ones specifically at the expense of all others especially with regards to 'inheritances' (which include 'heritage')!
(3)All governments OR the private wealth who OWN us when you have it your way, ALWAYS impose some 'socialism'. The conservative means "welfare" for the poor most specifically, not the FACT that a 'government' without social protections get passed onto those religious groups you want us all to be FORCED to go through when in need. It also enables you to DICTATE the terms of things like minimum wages, whether you as 'owners' have a right over others on 'property' that is ALL OWNED UP such that if you do NOT have it, you are FORCED to pay a tax (like 'rent') and bow down to the arbitrary nature of these mini-dictators. The world should NOT be 'owned' by a subset of the humans on Earth, ....especially without the CONSENT of the people beyond the castle walls you build and the weapons pointed against them.

Asking why 'socialism' is like asking why civilization at all? And given you want to take ANY and ALL power away from the individuals that make up the population who do NOT have inherent power, you are ANTI-democratic.

I think you've failed to realize that corporations ARE people. They're not just disdainful, rich owners; they're lower managers, regular labourers, office workers, temporary staff, the loading docks, courier services, meal providers, and so on. They're aggregations of people, each of whom depends on the health of the whole corporate work structure. And "profit" isn't a dirty word: it means the same as "working capital," or "potential for growth," or "wages" or "a living," or "food in my children's mouths."

You talk as if a corporation is sort of malevolent, conscious entity, but not human. It's "greedy" and lacks "compassion," and "likes subsets of people," and it "votes," you say. But it doesn't. It's just a group of people, and does nothing other than what those people will agree to do.

But my concern is not with the corporations anyway. As I said, they often have enough buffers and sources of financing to survive. But my compassion is with the guy in the shipping department who's lost his job to COVID, or the woman who used to work secretarial until the whole office closed and everybody else started working from home, and now can't make ends meet, or the old guy in the home, who would rather see his relatives but can't because of COVID restrictions, and dies alone, among strangers in masks. That's where I'll put my compassion.

Incorporated companies of people are HIDDEN from accountability for anything they could do that harms society. That is the 'limited liability' concept tied to the nature of the incorporation to mean the business MINUS the people who hold shares and those hired for mangement (private governments) make the entity as a whole a 'person', even though it is actually run by them. It is irrelevant that people are running them. They are running them like a criminal drug cartel might operate: find any and all loopholes to hide their transactions so that the particular owners and their selected management team cannot IN PRINCIPLE be held accountable.

The emphasis there is on PROVING their compassion by example rather than threaten, harm, or eliminate those who disagree.

If you thought that, you'd give up on government.

Instead, you'd be a big booster of the people who are invariably leading the way in things like poor relief, international aid, medical missions, educational outreaches, prison work, addiction treatment...and when you go look at those things, what you won't find is wonderful, compassionate governments solving all the problems, but rather lowly caring folks, most of them"religious" leading the way, struggling hard to bring light to dark places, often at great personal sacrifice and without much help from anyone. And you'd be amazed at how little all the jabbering at government level actually does for those who are down.

I think you'll find that George Orwell was right: Socialists don't love the poor; they just hate the rich.

You pick your interpretation of Orwell selectively. Animal Farm was particularly warning society how the greed in power EVEN in ideals such as 'Communism' appear to be fair. But the opposing extreme for the right is 'Dictatorial'. Compare the extremes. All people own the world VS. One person rules the world. While politics is certainly contradictory regardless of what we do, I prefer a system that appeals to MORE people, not less.

And Trump's behavior (and his Re-trumplicans) are precisely demonstrating how severely and overtly dishonest the right is. Thus, a middle ground is needed or the majority have to take precedence no matter what. It is only relatively 'better' to be on the right for if you happen to NOT BE of the racial genetic or other cultural stereotypes of those hated by the extremes that exist there. The left still has them but at least has so many MORE groups that there is no ONE particular cult or race who is able to dictate over the others. Thus, if we only take the abusers of both sides, the groups on the right have a better ability to effectively discriminate against MORE people than the left, who have more such groups but are not able to be effectively abusive with respect to those irrational parts of these cultures. That is the groups on the left are muli-varied where the groups on the right are effectively united by their minority races and cultures.

For a good contrast in artistic expression of the contradictions of ALL political ideals, listen to Pink Floyd where they adopted the various political views in different themed albums. "Animals" was their reference to the Communist concerns, "The Wall" to the National Socialist extreme. And even the "Dark Side of the Moon", may be considered relatively in the middle or to both sides from the middle.


I am most dismayed today with how Trump is behaving and, by contrast, how the Chinese socialist republic has evolved to become MORE compassionate to individuals (in contrast to some of the major concerns in Animal Farm, including ALLOWING traditional benefits that the right used to ONLY have credit before. Their 'socialist' system bent towards the right but WHEN they were more able to raise the wealth of the people universally. They also extend compassion with respect to attempting laws that limit 'free will' of those who want to have children without limits. Imagine how worse the pandemic would be had they NOT provided such limiting freedoms on just that one area of child birth freedoms. We have NO choice in the future to trend towards the left OR we will certainly destroy our world. You may have 'faith' that your God would step in by then to 'save' us. But if this same God gave you (or us all) the free will, it doesn't make sense that he would favor some humans with particular power to ride God like a horse to make it serve them over all others.

We all lose SOME freedoms regardless of which ideals we adopt. But MORE people lose when we favor the right of select LUCKY people to define 'government' to be based on their belief in supreme authorities, like Kings and Queens, etc. Logic is on my side on this issue. Civilization invented government in order to progress as we have. You are aiming to removing power of the majority when attempting to reverse it to some presumed 'prior' paradise that never existed.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:41 pm Asking why 'socialism' is like asking why civilization at all?

That's the funniest line I've seen in a long time. No, Scott; "Socialism" is not the same as "civilization." Civilizations have happened long before Karl Marx ever appeared, and have been around long after his hypocritical bones were mouldering in a grave.

I was not speaking about corporations.

Go back to this question: what are we going to do about small businesses that are being killed off at a horrendous rate?

As for "selectivity" on Orwell, not at all. We all know, if we know his bio, that Orwell started as a Socialist, then saw what it was really all about...from the inside. That's when he said what he said. And he said it to the British Socialists, who thereafter hated him for telling them the truth he knew about them.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Dec 11, 2020 1:27 am

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:41 pm Asking why 'socialism' is like asking why civilization at all?

That's the funniest line I've seen in a long time. No, Scott; "Socialism" is not the same as "civilization." Civilizations have happened long before Karl Marx ever appeared, and have been around long after his hypocritical bones were mouldering in a grave.

I was not speaking about corporations.

Go back to this question: what are we going to do about small businesses that are being killed off at a horrendous rate?

As for "selectivity" on Orwell, not at all. We all know, if we know his bio, that Orwell started as a Socialist, then saw what it was really all about...from the inside. That's when he said what he said. And he said it to the British Socialists, who thereafter hated him for telling them the truth he knew about them.

it is historically true that

Civilizations have happened long before Karl Marx ever appeared,

The civilisation of what we today call "the free world" grew by recocnisable historical stages from Judeo-Christianity and its Judaic predecessor, with significant Greek ingredients.

At the time of the historical origin of 'the free world' there were others besides the OT prophets who invented (or discovered) the same sort of society founded upon universalism instead of tribalism.

At the present time universalism is the guiding star of socialism, despite any incidental strayings of avowed socialists from the universalist moral principle. There is no way a moral, universalistic socialist will not try to succour all who suffer from injustice and material loss.

You too, immanuel, could be a universalist if you were not so tribal.