Comment by altruios | Hacker News Reader

Comment by altruios | Hacker News Reader

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Just for the sake of completeness: do you think the customers of your family member's business have any informational rights to know to whom they are giving their money to? If not, Does that lack of a right translate to every other company? How do you reconcile 'vote with your dollar' without knowing who you are voting for?

I agree that is a sensitive issue - but only in so far as 'gotta cover their ass' from a conservative job... which is... a weird place for a sex-toy designer to be... (which raises far more questions about the quality of toy-design if it isn't supporting a livelihood). Appeasement to conservatives is rarely a good strategy... appeasement through omission of data about who they are hiring seems like your family member put themselves in this precarious situation on their own volition. Everyone's got to eat, though, so can't be too bothered :)

But hiding who you are: feels morally dubious and self serving in that case you present.

> But hiding who you are: feels morally dubious and self serving in that case you present.

I wonder: do you hold the same views when it comes to regular people's online privacy?

No, I hold the privacy of a public company differently than a private citizen. If you do business - the stipulation for that is you should become 'public', in so much that there is a record of who owns a company... it should be the consumer's right to easily access knowledge whom they do business with: we don't live in a contraband-fueled market, our goods and services are 'above board' and should face public scrutiny.

I agree about the transparency when it comes to a business's activity: its goods and services.

But a business's ownership is about the privacy of its owners/stock holders - which are regular people. Saying their privacy is "morally dubious and self serving" is akin to saying regular people's need for privacy is morally dubious and self serving. Is the old anti-anonymity argument of "if you're all legit, what do you have to hide?!"

There is an argument to be made here though when said owner is another corporate entity - that is not a person so maybe it doesn't deserve any privacy.

> There is an argument to be made here though when said owner is another corporate entity - that is not a person so maybe it doesn't deserve any privacy.

Agree on that point.

One argument I muster for the general case: say you disagree politically with a billionaire and don't wish to give them any money, if you don't know what companies they own: how can you act effectively in market actions with limited information? such an arrangement systemically gives power to the owner class compared to the consumer class on every exchange made between the two. We should strive for something fairer, something more open. And we should not be terrorized by the limited few deranged bad faith/violent actors.

There were two great evil ideologies that ravaged the last century. One promoted hate agains people based on race, another based on wealth. One was called fascism and the other marxism. They both killed millions and they both are rearing their ugly heads back lately.

As an individual you are entitled to hate whomever you want. After all, we all have the racist uncle or the commie nephew. But the law should shield the public from people like you, not help you hunt your victims. Anti-segregation, anti-discrimination and privacy laws are good for that.

You seem to be talking over me and not at me. And seem to have inserted an assumption of what comes next in this conversation.

I don't want to give my money to a billionaire fascist, or capitalist, evangelical, or -ism (What I want is proper market information to act rationally as a market actor). I don't want to hunt anyone. I worry about what internet content you consume to make you think that's what I think. I would examine that.

You are about ready to fight a battle with a scarecrow you constructed yourself.

It would be fair if the customers were given the same ability to pay anonymously.

Maybe escrow services that did not hide their identity would solve the problem (for a price)?

> How do you reconcile 'vote with your dollar' without knowing who you are voting for?

"Vote with your dollar" is for morons. I don't reconcile it because it is irrelevant.

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