Good article, thank you. There's a word for what's done to us not only by corporations, but by 'authorities' in general: abuse. The psychologist Bruce E Levine wrote about this in his book Get Up Stand Up.
As is expect from Tom, another excellent article! I would just like to add that I run a successful business until I was 82 years old. And then the only reason I retired is because I could no longer handle the physical requirements of running my business, therefore I can speak with some knowledge of how to run a successful business.
The very first, number one rule for choosing a business for yourself, is make sure the business that you choose will be one that you enjoy working in for a good portune of your life, because choosing a business simply because you think it will make lots of money for you, rarely works.
Second rule is to arange — at least for most of your company schedules, a positive and confident atmosphere for your employees so that they will enjoy coming to work for you every morning. Remember, it is your *employees* that make your company a success. Grant your employees a decent wage with good benefits: treat them with respect, and you will have a successful company! Treat them like ignorant cattle, as if you were the only intelligent being in the room, and and that's what you will have: ignorant, uninformed cattle working for you, that will take every advantage of *you*— AND not give a damn how your customers feel about your company.
Now, speaking of loyal employees — the employees that you've trained, groomed and value— that will daily be in contact with, and satisfactorily fulfill your customers needs. Don't ever forget that it is your loyal well trained *employee* that will keep your customers as return customers: not you, the CEO/owner!
Costco is a good example of a successful business: good management, creating informed, valued employees; employees who know how to take excellent care of customers, creating satisfied customers who know that they will always get an honest and fair deal at Costco, creating the eternal circle of a successful business!
I've been saying Corporations are the problem for decades... The Federal Government incorporated in 1871 and now every State, County, and City are franchise corporations of the Federal Corporation "The United States." We no longer have Nevada State, Arizona State, New Yourk State. They were all converted to franchise corporations of the corporation... We now have The State of Nevada, The State of Arizona, and The State of New York!!! They all have illegal courts for We The People... Their courts are of the Water jurisdiction. Do you Live on a boat in the middle of international waters? If not you do NOT belong in their courts of the water... I live on the land... Thus I require the Law of the Land Jurisdiction!!! Peace...
I can't even tell you how much I love this posting!! All of this issue is absolutely real and it is so very painful to watch our "civilization" become a machine with no humanity at all. We still think we are far away from the 1984 scenario but it is right there! You are brilliant. Thank you.
Yes, the number one change is to stop corporate "personhood". Instead acknowledge the personhood of trees, air, water and the billions of biological creatures that keep this planet humming.
My approach to AI answering my call to a corporation is to NEVER treat it as a human. That's what they want for you to do -- to talk to AI as if it is human and then over time, though tested behaviour conditioning protocols they will train you to be a good AI compliant customer. This type of training is done cross platform (over all the big companies) and i believe the AI program first decides how to respond to you in particular by looking at your personality profile that's been created by Google from all your on-line activity and interactions as well as from listening in to your phone calls, plus all the background conversations and sounds recorded all the time your devices are on. So i just keep saying "agent", nothing else, until i get a human.
They obviously use digital services that keep track of all your calls to corporations. i realized this when some time ago all my calls to corporations were suddenly, all at once, being taken by AI. i just kept saying "agent" to get a live person, until all of a sudden none of my calls to any company was being taken by AI. They had given up, or at least the service coordinating this across companies had decided i was a lost cause. They know there will always be some people who will be difficult to have AI communicate with, i.e. recent immigrants or the elderly. But i'm sure they are expecting young people will become trained in the drill and then carry on through their lives as the laggards are eliminated through attrition. But then there are the defiants like me. If they don't know it already, they can read it right here -- that i intend on subverting their plans -- or at least the AI program can. You just need to accept that nothing done on-line or over the phone, escapes AI.
I think what we need is our own personal AI to work for us -- talk to their AI and get through all the run arounds and obfuscation when trying to get a real person. You would think that you could get your own personal AI to do everything for you by itself, i.e. check for overcharges on your bills and call the respective companies to straighten them out, but of course this would seriously go against their idea of an internet of ALL things, and their being able to control everything to their will, not yours. And any independent AI would need to be made by high tech companies who are the only ones with the resources -- so there would inevitably be back doors in it to make sure it sends analytics back to them, while the government would not allow an independent AI to run free anyway. By law, all independent AIs would need to be licensed and there would need to be surveillance routines built into them, so that they are not used for 'subversive' purposes, i.e. thinking up new ways to get out of paying taxes. So i guess we can give up on that idea of an AI ever working exclusively for our benefit.
This will never change. When the Supreme Court made the "Corporate Citizens" it opened the door to open bribery of politicians. After all that is the main tool of the lobby. With that bribery came absolute power to do as they please. Now that corporations are holding the reins they will drive their agenda of unlimited profit until the horses all drop dead. Another analogy is the straw that broke the camel's back. In the end greed is always destructive including to those driven by that greed. Hopefully some will be left to pick up the pieces and start again.
A De Facto unofficial set (s) of corporatocracy...very dehumanizing. Who enjoys feeling like a number in a sea of faceless numbers? Maybe a spy.
Good article, thank you. There's a word for what's done to us not only by corporations, but by 'authorities' in general: abuse. The psychologist Bruce E Levine wrote about this in his book Get Up Stand Up.
As is expect from Tom, another excellent article! I would just like to add that I run a successful business until I was 82 years old. And then the only reason I retired is because I could no longer handle the physical requirements of running my business, therefore I can speak with some knowledge of how to run a successful business.
The very first, number one rule for choosing a business for yourself, is make sure the business that you choose will be one that you enjoy working in for a good portune of your life, because choosing a business simply because you think it will make lots of money for you, rarely works.
Second rule is to arange — at least for most of your company schedules, a positive and confident atmosphere for your employees so that they will enjoy coming to work for you every morning. Remember, it is your *employees* that make your company a success. Grant your employees a decent wage with good benefits: treat them with respect, and you will have a successful company! Treat them like ignorant cattle, as if you were the only intelligent being in the room, and and that's what you will have: ignorant, uninformed cattle working for you, that will take every advantage of *you*— AND not give a damn how your customers feel about your company.
Now, speaking of loyal employees — the employees that you've trained, groomed and value— that will daily be in contact with, and satisfactorily fulfill your customers needs. Don't ever forget that it is your loyal well trained *employee* that will keep your customers as return customers: not you, the CEO/owner!
Costco is a good example of a successful business: good management, creating informed, valued employees; employees who know how to take excellent care of customers, creating satisfied customers who know that they will always get an honest and fair deal at Costco, creating the eternal circle of a successful business!
I've been saying Corporations are the problem for decades... The Federal Government incorporated in 1871 and now every State, County, and City are franchise corporations of the Federal Corporation "The United States." We no longer have Nevada State, Arizona State, New Yourk State. They were all converted to franchise corporations of the corporation... We now have The State of Nevada, The State of Arizona, and The State of New York!!! They all have illegal courts for We The People... Their courts are of the Water jurisdiction. Do you Live on a boat in the middle of international waters? If not you do NOT belong in their courts of the water... I live on the land... Thus I require the Law of the Land Jurisdiction!!! Peace...
I can't even tell you how much I love this posting!! All of this issue is absolutely real and it is so very painful to watch our "civilization" become a machine with no humanity at all. We still think we are far away from the 1984 scenario but it is right there! You are brilliant. Thank you.
Yes, the number one change is to stop corporate "personhood". Instead acknowledge the personhood of trees, air, water and the billions of biological creatures that keep this planet humming.
My approach to AI answering my call to a corporation is to NEVER treat it as a human. That's what they want for you to do -- to talk to AI as if it is human and then over time, though tested behaviour conditioning protocols they will train you to be a good AI compliant customer. This type of training is done cross platform (over all the big companies) and i believe the AI program first decides how to respond to you in particular by looking at your personality profile that's been created by Google from all your on-line activity and interactions as well as from listening in to your phone calls, plus all the background conversations and sounds recorded all the time your devices are on. So i just keep saying "agent", nothing else, until i get a human.
They obviously use digital services that keep track of all your calls to corporations. i realized this when some time ago all my calls to corporations were suddenly, all at once, being taken by AI. i just kept saying "agent" to get a live person, until all of a sudden none of my calls to any company was being taken by AI. They had given up, or at least the service coordinating this across companies had decided i was a lost cause. They know there will always be some people who will be difficult to have AI communicate with, i.e. recent immigrants or the elderly. But i'm sure they are expecting young people will become trained in the drill and then carry on through their lives as the laggards are eliminated through attrition. But then there are the defiants like me. If they don't know it already, they can read it right here -- that i intend on subverting their plans -- or at least the AI program can. You just need to accept that nothing done on-line or over the phone, escapes AI.
I think what we need is our own personal AI to work for us -- talk to their AI and get through all the run arounds and obfuscation when trying to get a real person. You would think that you could get your own personal AI to do everything for you by itself, i.e. check for overcharges on your bills and call the respective companies to straighten them out, but of course this would seriously go against their idea of an internet of ALL things, and their being able to control everything to their will, not yours. And any independent AI would need to be made by high tech companies who are the only ones with the resources -- so there would inevitably be back doors in it to make sure it sends analytics back to them, while the government would not allow an independent AI to run free anyway. By law, all independent AIs would need to be licensed and there would need to be surveillance routines built into them, so that they are not used for 'subversive' purposes, i.e. thinking up new ways to get out of paying taxes. So i guess we can give up on that idea of an AI ever working exclusively for our benefit.
This will never change. When the Supreme Court made the "Corporate Citizens" it opened the door to open bribery of politicians. After all that is the main tool of the lobby. With that bribery came absolute power to do as they please. Now that corporations are holding the reins they will drive their agenda of unlimited profit until the horses all drop dead. Another analogy is the straw that broke the camel's back. In the end greed is always destructive including to those driven by that greed. Hopefully some will be left to pick up the pieces and start again.