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The reasoning you cite is a retcon of the original reasoning that the OP got right.

Beyond that, #1 is factually incorrect, Facebook has positive rights that you don't, and #2 almost never holds starting from the realization that you're assuming that profit is inherently wise and that maximizing profit almost always requires the maximization of externatility. So using your rights wisely to your maximum advantage essentially never brings the most value.



Facebook is a company, I am a person. I don't see how this comparison makes sense, since these are very different entities.


What "positive rights" does Facebook have? How are you defining value in your last sentence?


Facebook has the right to mobilize several orders of magnitude more resources than the average person, in that sense they have many more positive rights. For example, the positive right to spend a billion dollars.

How value is defined in the last sentence doesn't matter, any way of defining value except total profit generation works. But for the sake of the discussion we can say total happiness.


The right to mobilize resources, even at the scale Facebook manages to the achieve, is not a positive right. Neither is spending a large amount of money a positive right. Perhaps you're confused with regards to what constitutes a positive or negative right? Or you'd like to explain how you are defining a "positive right" here ?

I disagree with your assertion that value not being defined doesn't matter. If it didn't, then your claim of "using your rights wisely to your maximum advantage essentially never brings the most value" would have nothing to stand on. After all, that's a value judgement.

I also take issue with your claim that the max profit generation is somehow irreconcilably divorced from total happiness. Facebook provides a service the people choose to use without guns to their heads. If people are unhappy with using Facebook or are uninvested in it (like myself), they can refuse to use it. If anything, I would arrive at an opposite conclusion: Much like cars and phones, people are satisfied with FB to the point that most are happy to use it, even if it comes with tradeoffs they wouldn't have tolerated in any other context. The user connects with others in a way that works for them and that's engineered to work very well for Facebook's financials. Every party involved is operating to their own standards utilizing their own negative rights to achieve their own ends. That's just business.




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