The glibness of this superficial comparison doesn't change the fact that anyone who actually thought seriously about crafting laws to deal with both of those would find themselves dealing with very different scenarios, both from a practical and moral/philosophical perspective.

But of course, if one just wants to say snide things on the internet, yeah they're simply the same in every major respect, why bother thinking that hard about it.

> The glibness of this superficial comparison doesn't change the fact that anyone who actually thought seriously about crafting laws to deal with both of those would find themselves dealing with very different scenarios, both from a practical and moral/philosophical perspective.

Yes. There aren't a lot of rogue cops in a position to put billion dollar holes in the economy. Few of them are in positions to influence medical decisions for millions of patients. While a rogue cop might be able to influence parole board decisions for thousands of criminals, it'd be terribly difficult to impact millions.

Yes, in theory, the police have a unique monopoly on the use of violence in society, which leads to unique challenges and scenarios. However, the potential problems that stem from removing someone from a responsibility without impacting their future have nothing to do with said monopoly, as demonstrated empirically with teachers, religious leaders, doctors, politicians, and yes, business leaders. In specific cases, it might be the right thing to do, but if you think about it, the potential problems from systemic application of this practice can lead to terrible outcomes that are proportional to the amount of responsibility, not the nature of it.

...but why bother thinking that hard about it?

Does YC? Or are you just irrelevantly musing?

Or is this where we pretend that leading YC is even vaguely similar to being a rogue cop, in terms of potential impact on people’s lives?

>Or is this where we pretend that leading YC is even vaguely similar to being a rogue cop, in terms of potential impact on people’s lives?

If a cop shoots someone and kills them, it destroys that life and possibly the family of those around him, the legal system kicks in -- that cop gets ousted or thrown into prison.

how many lives have been destroyed by the mere existence of reddit and twitch, and by extension the human trafficking they help to support? how about victims of sexual exploitation that are enabled by platform payment services? how about the person drug below the Cruise self-driving car for 20+ feet? how about drug interactions caused by e-doctor prescriptions that have little over-sight or supervisory element?

how about the simplest and most common thing ever -- how many lives are fucked up when an acquihire or business movement of some sort liquidates 80% of the staff?

I think the fantasy of the reins-holder being pardoned for the sins of their business is a concept that needs to be re-evaluated; these elements do serve to do damage as well as social good.

a rogue cop constitutes a rogue element in society that is dealt with in fairly swift fashion, a rogue corporation pays the fines and continues until a senator or similarly powerful person speaks up and points a finger ; that opens the floodgates for abuse.

The same guys who boost time and time again about “making the world a better place” would like everyone to wave away the responsibility on negative externalities their companies cause.

> If a cop shoots someone and kills them, it destroys that life and possibly the family of those around him, the legal system kicks in -- that cop gets ousted or thrown into prison.

I’m sorry, are you familiar with the ACAB movement at all?

> how many lives have been destroyed by the mere existence of reddit and twitch, and by extension the human trafficking they help to support?

Do externalities not exist, or is the platform (and somehow, whomever leads YC) solely and completely to blame for the users? Why is Reddit to blame, rather than BBSes or Mosaic, without which a platform like Reddit wouldn’t have existed? Do you blame, say, Tim Berners-Lee for the fact that sex trafficking is enabled by the Internet, or only ephemeral “CEOs” and/or “billionaires”?

> how many lives are fucked up when an acquihire or business movement of some sort liquidates 80% of the staff?

Do you think getting laid off, typically with severance, is the same as getting shot or imprisoned? Do you think you are perpetually and permanently entitled to the specific job you currently have?

> I think the fantasy of the reins-holder being pardoned for the sins of their business is a concept that needs to be re-evaluated; these elements do serve to do damage as well as social good.

I think pretending losing or making money is the same as losing years of your life to prison is a weird progressive fantasy, that comes from people vastly to entitled to understand the consequences of the latter.

> a rogue cop constitutes a rogue element in society that is dealt with in fairly swift fashion

This is demonstrable nonsense, more so given that “rogue cop” presupposes cops who do egregious things, rather than simply cops who, for instance, over-police crimes or neighborhoods.

> Do externalities not exist, or is the platform (and somehow, whomever leads YC) solely and completely to blame for the users? Why is Reddit to blame, rather than BBSes or Mosaic, without which a platform like Reddit wouldn’t have existed? Do you blame, say, Tim Berners-Lee for the fact that sex trafficking is enabled by the Internet, or only ephemeral “CEOs” and/or “billionaires”?

It isn't about blame. It's about impact.

> Do you think getting laid off, typically with severance, is the same as getting shot or imprisoned? Do you think you are perpetually and permanently entitled to the specific job you currently have?

In fact, layoffs and poor labor options do, in fact, lead to increased mortality rates: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02779....

So, while I'd rather be laid off than shot or imprisoned, the scale of impact of captains of industry on the economic circumstance of millions could have a body count far higher than any rogue cop.

I wasn't trying to suggest they were similar.

It might be hard to imagine this, but it is possible that leading a company deploying billions of dollars might actually have a significantly larger potential impact on people's lives than a rogue cop.

I find that answer hand-wavey. Which YC company has impacted any specific person’s life more directly than, say, Philip Brailsford?

I also think pretending you weren’t making a comparison is absurd - why post about the evils of big companies in this context if that were the case?

Saying “rich people are all bad and have hurt way more people” is specious. Implying that I can’t imagine it, when you are apparently incapable of being specific, is juvenile.

> Saying “rich people are all bad and have hurt way more people” is specious.

> Implying that I can’t imagine it, when you are apparently incapable of being specific, is juvenile.

I agree. I wasn't saying that, anymore than someone was saying "all cops are bad and have hurt way more people". I'm certainly not saying YCombinator or any of its companies have done something spectacularly bad. Besides that, the whole point in "bad cop who is let go without any harm to their future" metaphor would be about the subsequent work of any "bad employee" at YCombinator. I would point out though that this lack of transparency is why, is why neither you might not know of any misdeeds --and that's the problem.

OpenAI has access to massive amounts of capital & data, and has a pretty significant reach already, and it's just the beginning. Would it really be so absurd that Sam Altman couldn't have a far larger influence on the world, positive or negative, than a cop? If it is absurd, then we're either investing way too much in OpenAI or way too little in cops.

Rewritten to actually be readable (and apologies for that):

I agree. I wasn't saying that, anymore than someone was saying "all cops are bad and have hurt way more people". I'm certainly not saying YCombinator or any of its companies have done something specifically bad. Besides that, the whole point in "bad cop who is let go without any harm to their future" metaphor, as applied to YCombinator, would be about the subsequent work of any "bad employee" at YCombinator. I would point out though that this lack of transparency is why neither you nor I might not know of any misdeeds --and that's the problem.

OpenAI has access to massive amounts of capital & data, and has a pretty significant reach already, and it's just the beginning. Would it really be so absurd that Sam Altman couldn't have a far larger influence on the world, positive or negative, than a cop? If it is absurd, then we're either investing way too much in OpenAI or way too little in cops.