Big Tech vs Big Government are the Church vs State of the digital era - they must be kept separate - and preferably somewhat adversarial - so that powers are divided and we the people have some sort of chance.
Separation of church and state is about the government not enforcing or favoring one religion over others. I'm having trouble seeing the analogy applied to separation of big tech and big government. The separation of big tech and big government is a different categorical issue. But does this issue actually exist? At the end of the day, the government holds all the power over big tech as it should. And you do have a chance to say how your government should operate.
Government cannot ask big tech for data on their users.
Big tech is not allowed to lobby for the government to pass certain laws or restrictions or whatever else.
Big tech is not allowed to voluntarily or in any form shape or a communicate any data with the government unless it is strictly related to government business and employees.
The government may not communicate in any form shape or way any data to big tech unless the conditions from the above paragraph apply.
Government may continue to regulate technology companies, but the data they collect on their users is considered strictly not in the domain of any form of government.
Unless we are talking about court cases with discovery and the defendant being able to defend themselves. If someone uses Facebook to commit a crime Facebook should be liable to reveal data about the messages they sent by court order for a *public* trial.
There are severe consequences to what you're suggesting with a net negative to society. Before you know it we'll have Big Tech Banks being a money launderer's wet dream. Kinda like how it is now, except all their data is in a bank the government can't touch or will ever know about.
> There are severe consequences to what you're suggesting with a net negative to society
There are always severe consequences, there are severe consequences if thhe status quo remains as is, there are severe consequences if the status quo changes
We have got banking privacy regulations through the world, we have got religious and government split laws through the world. These both work and are needed
It is due time big tech becomes split from explicit government interference with political aims and goals as shown on the Twitter Papers. This NSA bullshit is also not acceptable
I would believe regulations on banking would apply regardless. You would apply these laws only to places where social media companies are dealing with the people's day today data and interactions, not stuff like banking.
It's the law, it'll be written by a billion lawyers who consider edge cases like this and this little comic will apply.
You're oversimplifying the law. There's no legal speak as to what constitutes Big Tech. What if it's a social media company that does financial transactions?
Overall, you're giving more power to Big Tech and lessening the power of government over Big Tech. They will be able to hide their offenses under the cover of "user's data", which the government is not allowed to see.
> There's no legal speak as to what constitutes Big Tech. What if it's a social media company that does financial transactions?
Again. This is literally what law is all about. All existing law was created from baselines like these, and this is a very very poor excuse to refuse to regulate a massive and dangerous industry.
Refusing the ability for the government to absorb the data of big tech is not empowering them, it's weakening them.
How about things like education, healthcare and social services? Historically these were all functions of the church, not of the state. Those functions coming under control of the state means, in effect, the state transforming into the church - or at least functionally becoming church-like.
We see how big tech is taking on a lot of functions of a state. Big tech companies are a bit like states. They have something like citizenship, taxes, and laws.
. Big tech companies are a bit like states. They have something like citizenship, taxes, and laws.
What taxes, laws, and citizenship is unqiue to tech companies? I assume you mean money to join, rules, and membership. There are business outside of tech that have this
It may be also worth noting that the "Separation of Church and State" people often quote is from a poem that a politician was reciting. To my knowledge that concept has never been codified in law.
It is in the first amendment. That is, the US explicitly can not force all citizens into a single church as was common in England where they were Catholic for half a millennia and then replaced that with the Church of England.
People love to bring up “it’s actually not in the constitution” as if explicitly saying that in anyway detracts from the fact that a foundational principle of the nation /separated/ church from state.
That does prevent forcing a particular religion on people but it does not in any way prevent the mix of religion and government. As just one example, court rooms still have people swear on Christian bibles. I believe it has recently become optional. There are also many government buildings that fund the creation and installation of religious statues and bible verses on plaques in their halls using taxpayer funds. There are many laws derived from Christian ethics and values.
There are also unwritten concepts that are effectively enforced such as prison review boards giving credence to someone that has become a Born Again Christian when considering parole. That is not written anywhere to my knowledge.
But you are right, they can not force someone to be Christian.
>> As just one example, court rooms still have people swear on Christian bibles. I believe it has recently become optional.
You watch too much TV. Most courts do not have you swear "on" anything, you simple raise your hand "Swear or affirm under the pains and penalties of perjury you will tell the truth" some do not even add the "under the pains and penalties of perjury"
if there are any courts in the US still using a Bible they are in the EXTREME minority.
>There are also many government buildings that fund the creation and installation of religious statues and bible verses on plaques in their halls
Pretty sure that is also not true... Governments have allowed the installation of such things but they are often funded by private groups. I would love a citation where the GOVERNMENT paid for out of tax payer money a religious installations is say they last 20 years.. (paid for, not approved)
>>effectively enforced such as prison review boards giving credence to someone that has become a Born Again Christian when considering parole.
Citation...
Parole Boards often require the offender to Admit guilt and ask for forgiveness, this has being interpreted by extreme anti-religious groups as them "requiring people to become born again Christians"
“We can make Christianity the de facto law of the land, have federal holidays be Christian holidays, have the interests of the church intertwined with that of the state, have “secular” state institutions mirror christian sacraments, have our pledge of allegiance essentially be a declaration of our country being Christian — but hey, they can’t make you go to church on Sunday” is not exactly what one might call a strong separation.
American culture is Christian due to it descending from Europeans. No shit.
I never said I wanted to listen to your opinions about the modern state of religion in America. I told you a fact, that church and state are separated by law in this nation and it’s encoded into the bill of rights. That you dislike American culture having evolved from a Christian one is your own axe to grind clearly.
It’s not about the culture, it’s the fact that the separation isn’t actually really all of that separate. If you swap the “secular” elements enshrined in our government to another faith it becomes glaringly obvious that we are respecting an establishment of religion.
* One nation, under Allah, indivisible… (Islam)
* Marriage is a legal institution between one man any many women (Mormon)
* “The office is closed for Yom Kippur next Monday.” (Judaism)
* The right to bodily autonomy begin at birth so there is no moral issue with abortion (Satanic Temple)
Of course the people are descendants of protestants and so our customs would naturally reflect that but so does our government. As a country we were so concerned about escaping state sponsored religion that we didn’t stop to think at all about how codifying norms into law that come from a particular religion end up creating a religious rule in all but name. Like we don’t even pretend to have religious freedom in any meaningful sense — your right to practice the traditions of your faith or have your institutions respected ends where what is acceptable and normal as defined by Christians ends.
Your examples are as much cultural as religious, at least in this era. "Under god" was added to the anthem in the 50s, and I doubt it'll last another decade.
Plural marriage isn't widely practiced or supported for pragmatic reasons.
Holidays are religious artifacts, yet not all of them, and there is no forced participation anymore. (Except in so far as government services are unavailable.)
Abortion rights have and are evolving. As the old, more religious folks die off it should swing the other way soon.
American culture descended from Christian fundamentalism, not Christianity. It’s a huge difference and it shows all over the place in how bigoted US laws are, compared to most of Europe.
No it is from Jefferson, whereby he was remarking that the first amendment "thus building a wall of separation between Church & State" in response to a church writing him a letter about oppression they were feeling at the hands of a state government.
> They're so heavily intertwined that bucketing them into distinct categories that don't talk to each other would be a massive ship to turn around.
never mind, then. the big thing that moral imperatives have in common with the checks and balances necessary for society to be healthy is that none of these things ever require any effort.
I'm not convinced this is entirely true. In the USA maybe it holds some degree of accuracy right now but just looking at China and Tencent shows plenty of evidence for how a tech company might find heavy government interference cumbersome at the very least within certain commercial spaces.
I reflexively agreed, but then I hesitated, because some of my recent discussions with other people suggest that to them, in an abstract, it is just that.. some far fetched abstract impossibility. My most recent like conversation was extra depressing, because I was not only given 'nothing to hide' argument, but it also was followed with 'you gotta trust the system'.
I want to blame politicization and very clear 'us vs them' sentiment, but I am no longer certain that is the entire reason for current craziness. I am not sure non-tech people understand what is at stake.
To me it is an episode of Dark Mirror 'The entire history of you'. And they do not get it why it is a very bad idea to make a new normal.
I would say as a tribe, rather than as a religion. Religion involves some combo of supernatural and ethical beliefs. Tribes are about in-group out-group status and conflict.
Where does this come from? The religious foundations of the current GOP are well attested[1].
The historical conventional wisdom around the US's political parties is that Democrats fall in love (meaning that they abstain from voting over minor political differences), while Republicans fall in line (meaning that they hold their nose and vote for whoever the party ticket is). That's changed a little bit over the the last decade, but not appreciably so.
In my opinion, Republicans are less falling in line and more voting against the other side.
American politics today are about thesis/antithesis, where the thesis is whatever the latest liberal agenda is and the antithesis is everyone who normally disagrees with each other, but is united in a common disagreement with the Democratic Party.
In this environment, there's only one political thesis (not antithesis) that has more than a very small percentage of the vote.
What makes you say that when preachers are actively testing the laws regarding non-profit status, widely reported to support GOP legislators who are using their religion as the basis for their platforms on abortion.
I don't think so. Big Government uses Big Tech as a tool in its arsenal. There is no greater surveillance tool. Trying to keep them separated is like trying to keep Big Government separated from the Military Industrial Complex. They are two sides of the same coin.
That's what he's saying. He's not saying that Big Government and Big Tech are separated, he's saying that Big Government and Big Tech ought to be separated.
In the West we fight pretty hard to keep the Church and State separated, but this isn't a natural state of being. The Divine Right of Kings, the Pharoahs were gods, Sharia law, the Japanese Emperor is the direct descendant of Amaterasu, the Spanish Inquisition, etc etc etc. History is rife with Church and State being two sides of the same coin. In fact in recent years certain government leaders have been pretty effective at intertwining the US government with Christianity, despite the separation of Church and State being enshrined in the First Amendment; prayer in schools, the repeal of Roe v Wade, etc.
The link between big government and big tech (and big ag, big auto...) ought to be fought with similar gusto as we attempt to protect the separation we've won between church and state.
I think this misses the bigger problem. Much like the MIC, big tech is a matter of national security. If the USG doesn’t get involved with their own home grown tech companies, nothing is stopping other state powers from doing so.
Freedom of religion came at a time when long-distance communication traveled very slow, in a country with oceans for borders. In a typical (old world) situation religious consolidation makes sense for a state, religion is the only thing that significantly threatens state power besides other states. This was even more true 300 years ago. Today’s tech companies aren’t a challenger to state power; people mostly hate Mark Z. & Jeff B., rather tech is the very fabric that the state is made of.
> That's what he's saying. He's not saying that Big Government and Big Tech are separated, he's saying that Big Government and Big Tech ought to be separated.
Right, and I'm saying they can't be (as I said, two sides of the same coin).
I think this desire comes from a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of power. It's beyond wishful thinking.
Yeah but big government put a ton of money into creating these technologies in the first place- why do you think they did it? They’re getting value for their money. Information technology is technology of control.
Those two categories are both random af. Are local police "Big Government" according to even half of the people who use the phrase "Big Government"? Are banks that utilize AI "big tech"? What about government intelligence agencies that have venture wings and invest in these companies? How quick a revolving door between the two blurs your distinction? Are you imagining pitched legal battles between the two based on public court filings? How likely are the filings themselves falsely suggesting some schism between the two that doesn't exist?
They have been since WWII. In the recent years the CIA has been quite busy in silicon valley. [1] Prior to that many projects funded by DARPA were tested and refined by the general public. The internet was one of the projects.
