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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

This is making the assumption that the Democratic party doesn't have a vested interest in these Silicon Valley giants. Democrats running for office might be slinging virtue, but I have my doubts that the party itself is particularly interested in breaking up institutions that are politically aligned with them. Having a Democrat president didn't stop the expansion of the surveillance apparatus or the monopolization of tech and communication.

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I don't want to sound too blackpill, but anymore I really feel like political-party-based virtue claims - from both sides - are, by and large, expressions of virtue theatre that are designed to garner support.

Some people in politics really do care; but at least in the US, it's hard not to look at the state of things and come to the conclusion that the system lends itself to corruption that goes so deep that nobody with any real influence has a vested interest in "virtues" outside of using them to curry favor with the general public.

Again, I apologize for how jaded this sounds... but it's really hard to feel any other way.

There's two things I see going on here. Firstly, there's the question of whether it's even possible for someone to be an effective politician without lying. There's also the possibility that America is so disinterested and morally bankrupt that politicians know they can get away with saying one thing and doing another. To make things even worse, the amount of scrutiny politicians are now under for even the most minor of things creates such a filter that only the politicians who are willing to spew PR bullcrap or are bulletproof to bad press will make it. It's a complicated issue because, let's say that political theater is far more effective at winning votes than telling the truth or actually helping the voters; an honest person is stuck in a sort of prisoner's dilemma where their most practical choice is to betray any sort of principles they have.

It's routine to make sure potential candidates who won't fall in line don't get their voice heard with equal footing. I would say the majority of the primary candidates in any election are cookie cutter. Trump and Bernie are rare exceptions I haven't really seen in my lifetime until recently.

"I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating."

-Boss Tweed

It doesn’t sound too blackpill to me at all, in fact I’d take it a step further. I often wonder whether the domination of Google-Amazon-Facebook doesn’t really serve the interests of the “Deep State” making them essentially bulletproof. Why would you want to break apart a domestic company when they serve as an international parasurveillance apparatus? You hear more from the feds about Apple needing to backdoor their phones than the anti-competitive behavior or spying that the rest take part in. Like you said, it’s probably just lip service from (most) of the Democrats.

The fact that your comment here hasn't been downvoted to oblivion suggests to me the only beef most people have with what you've said is that you criticized the Democrats. I find this really surprising given typical HN'er political leanings.

Is this an indication of some sort of tipping point being reached? Have most people regardless of politics come to the same conclusion about the reality of the silicon valley surveillance-fueled power grab?

I don’t believe these companies are more or less aligned to one party vs another. The louder portions of their workforce may be liberal, but Mark, Satya, and others will wine and dine whoever they can to protect their companies. The only adversarial relationship I know of is Trump and Amazon.

There's a video of Google's first all-hands meeting after the election. It's like a funeral. Even the concept that someone could want Trump elected for a decent reason is utterly ignored. This includes and is led by the most senior of leadership - Sergey, Larry, and Sundar.

“Most people here are pretty upset and pretty sad,” Google cofounder Sergey Brin says as the meeting begins. “I find this election deeply offensive, and I know many of you do too. It’s a stressful time, and it conflicts with many of our values. I think it’s a good time to reflect on that. ... So many people apparently don’t share the values that we have.”

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

That was in November 2016. It's highly likely that sentiment, at least with management, has changed over time- especially since this administration has proven itself to be as solicitous towards big business as prior Republican presidencies. Not to mention, the publicly-signaled sentiment of the visible figurehead leadership can be very different from the true opinions of the corporate board.

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