Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[Roedy Green]

If you think you can direct the development of human behaviour by not
buying a Microsoft product, be my guest.

Refusing to take any action against them is also immoral. I think you
are morally obligated to take some reasonable action to counter
Microsoft, effective in and of itself or not.

Your counsel is similar to those who tell people it is futile to vote.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do
nothing.”
~ Edmund Burke

I had an experience that changed my completely on that sort of issue.
I started gay lib in my part of the world purely as a "futile moral
gesture". Within 2 years to my utter amazement, we had the gay rights
legislation.

 

[Roedy Green]

The only obligation Microsoft has is to their shareholders.

That's almost as convincing as "that's what you think".

Taken literally, you think MS has no obligation to obey the law, to
its customers, to its employees.

I don't think you will find many CEOs espousing those sentiments,
though you will in alt.politics.bush from those who have just read
their first book outside of school reading and picked an Ayn Rand
novel.

 

[Roedy Green]

That's almost as convincing as "that's what you think".

If your only obligation is to a group of person, that makes you a sort
of slave. What about obligations to family, community, yourself?

 

[Roedy Green]

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the
initiative in creating the Internet."

He did just that. Think about it. Without Gore, the Internet would
never have been delayed perhaps indefinitely. Without any of he
technical people, someone else would have done the same work. Even the
guys who did the low level protocols credit Gore.

Your forget how much abuse folk like you heaped on Gore when he was
pushing the "information super highway" as it was known back then.

 

[Roedy Green]

existed then.

Yes, he deserves credit for what he did. He nevertheless created a
false impression in what he said. If he hadn't created that false
impression, there would not have been any jokes about him. If all he
said was what he actually did, this would never have been an issue.

It is standard procedure to twist another politician's words and tease
him like a gang of 4 year olds.

Think of poor Mr. Bush. People quote him all the time.

See http://mindprod.com/politics/bushisms.html

 

[David Schwartz]

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 11:53:29 -0700, "David Schwartz"

Taken literally, you think MS has no obligation to obey the law, to
its customers, to its employees.

No, taken stupidly. Hint: would or would not MS executives disobeying
the law constitute a betrayal of their obligation to their shareholders?

I don't think you will find many CEOs espousing those sentiments,
though you will in alt.politics.bush from those who have just read
their first book outside of school reading and picked an Ayn Rand
novel.

The validity of an idea does not depend upon who it comes from. This is
a sad attempt at guilt by association.

DS

 

[David Schwartz]

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 11:53:29 -0700, "David Schwartz"

If your only obligation is to a group of person, that makes you a sort
of slave.

If you voluntarily take on a job that includes obligations, and have the
right to leave any time you want, you are not any sort of a slave.

What about obligations to family, community, yourself?

Microsoft has no family, and doesn't have a self in this sense.
Microsoft executives have obligations to family, but this should not affect
their performance as executives, in which capacity their obligations are to
their shareholders.

As for obligations to community, no, there is no such obligation. An
executive who devoted his company to his community against his shareholders'
wishes should be fired. The company exists as a vehicle to execute the
desires of the shareholders. That's why they get to vote on who runs it.

That does not mean that acting to support the community can't be the
shareholder's wishes or can't be in the bests interests of the shareholders,
of course. But qua corporation, it's purely a vehicle to execute the
shareholders' wishes.

Corporate executives also have an obligation to obey the law, of course.
If, hypothetically, you had a company that had a majority of shareholders
who wanted to break the law, an ethical executive would pretty much have to
quit.

DS

 

[David Schwartz]

On 18 Oct 2005 13:21:19 -0500, (e-mail address removed) wrote or quoted :

It is standard procedure to twist another politician's words and tease
him like a gang of 4 year olds.

I agree. Gore made an very unfortunate choice of words that left him
open to pot shot type ridicule and abuse. There's really no reason to think
he was actually trying to take credit for the creation of the Internet
itself.

DS

 

[Roedy Green]

No, taken stupidly. Hint: would or would not MS executives disobeying
the law constitute a betrayal of their obligation to their shareholders?

You stated it literally as if making maximum profit for the
shareholders were the only consideration in determining conduct.

If that is not what you mean, I think you need to hedge more.

 

[Roedy Green]

As for obligations to community, no, there is no such obligation. An
executive who devoted his company to his community against his shareholders'
wishes should be fired. The company exists as a vehicle to execute the
desires of the shareholders. That's why they get to vote on who runs it.

Why should loyalty to company trump all other loyalties -- family,
law, species, community, country, religion ... ?

 

[David Schwartz]

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:30:42 -0700, "David Schwartz"

You stated it literally as if making maximum profit for the
shareholders were the only consideration in determining conduct.

No, I did not. I said that their obligation is to their shareholders.

If that is not what you mean, I think you need to hedge more.

I was perfectly clear. This is a lot of deliberate misunderstanding
going on in this thread and very little of it is from my side.

DS

 

[David Schwartz]

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:34:55 -0700, "David Schwartz"

Why should loyalty to company trump all other loyalties -- family,
law, species, community, country, religion ... ?

Perhaps you aren't following the thread, but I was talking about the
obligations a company has, not the obligations any individual has. And I was
talking about obligations *to* individuals.

Your criticism would be very appropriate if I said that individuals only
owe loyalty to companies. But what I said is that Microsoft (a company) owes
an obligation to its shareholders (people). That is, that companies exist
purely to benefit people.

It is funny that your accusation is based on assuming I said exactly the
opposite of what I actually said.

DS

 

[Luke Webber]

No, I did not. I said that their obligation is to their shareholders.

As much as I hate to jump in on this thread, well I'm gonna...

I think you'll find that companies have all manner of legal obligations.
Certainly to their shareholders, but beyond that they have an obligation
to their clients, who pay them for their services, and to any
individual or entity which might be harmed by their actions.

A classic case in point would be Philip Morris, who did everything they
could to protect their shareholders, but who shirked their duty of care
to their customers and the the public at large. They have since paid
heavily for that failure.

I was perfectly clear. This is a lot of deliberate misunderstanding
going on in this thread and very little of it is from my side.

All that means to me is that your misunderstanding is not deliberate. <g>

Luke

 

[Alan Connor]

<body not downloaded>

This is your 7th post on this thread, Michael.

You spend a lot of time griping about trolls. Maybe you should
consider not feeding them, you stupid hypocrite.

To all the shit-for-brains trolls that are polluting these groups
with this crap, which I haven't even bothered to read:

I've killfiled every one of your aliases here, and I'm sure that
they aren't the first of your aliases I've killfiled and that
they won't be the last.

I don't hate M$, I LOVE Linux.

As for what YOU punks think about it, I couldn't care less.

Aren't your Mommys coming home soon? You know what will happen
if she finds you playing with her computer again.....

AC

 

[Roedy Green]

No, I did not. I said that their obligation is to their shareholders.


I was perfectly clear. This is a lot of deliberate misunderstanding
going on in this thread and very little of it is from my side.

You have a problem because there are many other people saying similar
things to you who mean something much more extreme. If you don't
intend that, you need to be more precise in your language.

 

[Roedy Green]

Perhaps you aren't following the thread, but I was talking about the
obligations a company has, not the obligations any individual has. And I was
talking about obligations *to* individuals.

To me that makes no sense. Microsoft is an abstraction. It can't do
anything. It can't make decisions. Only the individuals to work for it
or on the board can, though they may do it in Microsoft's name. If
you want to talk about moral action, obligation etc. you can't divorce
that from the people who do the actions.

 

[Roedy Green]

To all the shit-for-brains trolls that are polluting these groups
with this crap, which I haven't even bothered to read:

A single thread does not pollute a group. It is trivially easy to
ignore a thread. If your newsreader does not support that feature,
try an different newsreader. See
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/newsgroups.html

It is a big thread. Obviously people are interested in it even if you
are not.

 

[David Schwartz]

As much as I hate to jump in on this thread, well I'm gonna...

I think you'll find that companies have all manner of legal obligations.
Certainly to their shareholders, but beyond that they have an obligation
to their clients, who pay them for their services, and to any individual
or entity which might be harmed by their actions.

They have obligations to their clients because (and only because)
failure to provide the services they contract to provide will result in
lawsuits and harm to the shareholders. All other obligations come from the
harm these failures will do to the shareholders. First and formost,
companies exist to do the will of their shareholders.

A classic case in point would be Philip Morris, who did everything they
could to protect their shareholders, but who shirked their duty of care to
their customers and the the public at large. They have since paid heavily
for that failure.

You mean their shareholders paid heavily.

All that means to me is that your misunderstanding is not deliberate. <g>

No misunderstanding. Corporations exist specifically to do the will of
their shareholders. There are other theoritcal models of corporations (for
example, wherein the shareholders only provide the capital to execute the
will of the directors), but Microsoft is certainly not a corporation of this
type.

DS

 

[David Schwartz]

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 23:18:31 -0700, "David Schwartz"

To me that makes no sense. Microsoft is an abstraction. It can't do
anything. It can't make decisions. Only the individuals to work for it
or on the board can, though they may do it in Microsoft's name. If
you want to talk about moral action, obligation etc. you can't divorce
that from the people who do the actions.

If anything that makes the objection even less meaningful. The objection
was:

Why should loyalty to company trump all other loyalties -- family,
law, species, community, country, religion ... ?

And the answer is that I'm not talking about "loyalty to company" but
loyalty to shareholders, which are people. Of course, a person is never
required to do anything that actually conflicts with their conscience,
although in some cases this may require you to quit.

DS

 

[Jerzy Karczmarczuk]

A single thread does not pollute a group. It is trivially easy to
ignore a thread. If your newsreader does not support that feature,
try an different newsreader.

The pollution *is* there, despite the possibility of individual screening.
The subject and the contents violates some basic nsgroup principles, such as
topicality. One to ten irrelevant postings do no harm. More than hundred -
become annoying. Cross-posting to 5 groups is bad. Please go away.

Claiming that this is an interesting, "great" thread is utterly silly in this
context. Shall Python newsgroup discuss the trial of Saddam Hussein as well?

Jerzy Karczmarczuk