alt Hacker NewsMonetary incentives are the foundations of Capitalism. There are only two ways that ethics might get in the way of their profits.
The first is government regulation. We saw lots of deregulation of oversight over the ten years before the 2008 financial crisis. None of the ethically compromised C-suite folks went to jail for their behavior because it was suddenly not a crime. Sometimes you have regulation, but you don't have enforcement of the regulations. This is what we get when the government is comprised of or controlled by capitalists. It's called fascism.
The second is public boycott or revolt. Could the new Target CEO be the result of the recent boycott? Same with Starbucks? Has anyone actually bought a Tesla in the past year? The big tech folks are bending over backwards to hide the fact that they have no real AI business model, making it a gigantic bubble that is about to burst. There is a national frenzy that no one is reporting on people ditching their subscriptions. We are going to see affordability get worse very quickly. It will be interesting to see what happens as more and more people start tightening their purse strings, whether by choice or necessity.
> Sometimes you have regulation, but you don't have enforcement of the regulations.
Indeed. Let us quote the Dune books (since they're trending, and for good reason!):
"Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. -Law and Governance (The Spacing Guild)"
And if you would let me indulge one more:
"Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class: whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. -Politics as Repeat Phenomenon (Bene Gesserit Training Manual)"