alt Hacker NewsFrom an IBM training manual (1979):
>A computer can never be held accountable
>Therefore a computer must never make a management decision
The (EDITED) corollary would arguably be:
>Corporations are amoral entities which are potentially immortal who cannot be placed behind bars. Therefore they should never be given the rights of human beings.
(potentially, not absolutely immortal --- would wording as "not mortal by essence/nature"? be better?)
Replies
I changed my stance on "immoral" corporations:
Legal systems are the ones being "immoral" and "unethical" and "not just", not "righteous", not fair. They represent entire nations and populations while corpos represent interests of subsets of customers and "sponsors".
If corpos are forced to pivot because they are behaving ugly, they will ... otherwise they might lose money (although that is barely an issue anymore, given how you can offset almost any kind of loss via various stock market schemes).
But the entire chain upstream of law enforcement behaves ugly and weak, which is the fault of humanities finest and best earning "engineers".
Just take a sabbatical and fix some of that stuff ...
>> I mean you and your global networks got money and you can even stay undetected, so what the hell is the issue? Personal preference? Damn it, I guess that settles that. <<
How is a corporation "immortal"?
What is the oldest corporation in the world? I mean, aside from churches and stuff.
Corporations can die or be killed in numerous ways. Not many of them will live forever. Most will barely outlive a normal human's lifespan.
By definition, since a corporation comprises a group of people, it could never outlive the members, should they all die at some point.
Let us also draw a distinction between the "human being" and the "person". A corporation is granted "personhood" but this is not equivalent to "humanity". Being composed of humans, the members of any corporation collectively enjoy their individual rights in most ways.
A "corporate person" is distinct from a "human person", and so we can recognize that "corporate rights" are in a different category, and regulate accordingly.
A corporation cannot be "jailed" but it can be fined, it can be dissolved, it can be sanctioned in many ways. I would say that doing business is a privilege and not a right of a corporation. It is conceivable that their ability to conduct business could be restricted in many ways, such as local only, or non-interstate, or within their home nation. I suppose such restrictions could be roughly analogous to being "jailed"?