Core to attitudes like Coinbase's (as described in the article) the theory that their only responsibility is profit for their shareholders.
IMHO, that theory is like many others today: It's attractive - it simplifies everything and even makes it quantifiable - but does not stand up to a moment's scrutiny.
Almost everything Coinbase has comes from their community: Liberty; peace; political functionality and stability; economic stability; the rule of law; property rights; the free market; the wealth of the market they sell to; the education and wealth of employees, customers, and partners (including the massive public education and healthcare systems - imagine how their company would survive Coronavirus without the public health system and eventual free vaccine); the physical infrastructure of housing, roads, food, power, etc., all kept functioning and safe; the incredible technology stack they build upon, from mathematics to basic literacy to electricity to materials to more proximate tech (the Internet, Web, TCP/IP, and of course the cryptocurrency technology). No matter what Coinbase does, they add only a sliver on top of what's come before.
It's just an absurd, transparent rationalization for selfishness to try to justify being a parasite, for not contributing to it and being responsible for making it work. Our community is us; nobody else will make it work. And it's sociopathic to say that, about part of our community, 'I don't care what happens to African-Americans'.
But being a sociopath and buying into this transparently false argument has become trendy and admired by a vast swath of powerful people in American business, as if ignoring problems will solve them. I used to wonder if they really were smarter than others, but recently I've concluded that they follow the herd and are easily manipulated as much as other people are (and I could have seen it earlier in financial bubbles, etc.). And as they've followed the herd in disparaging liberalism and postmodernism, rather than thinking critically about them, they've unilaterally disarmed themselves, willingly discarded the tools that would protect them from being deceived, confused, and led.
>It's just an absurd, transparent rationalization for selfishness to try to justify being a parasite on all that by not contributing to it and being responsible for making it work.
But we have an entire institution dedicated to solving these types of problems - the government. We don't want corporations trying to "make it work" or "contributing" - we want people to pay their taxes so the government can execute its mission.
The well-used argument that only government is responsible is, if you think about it for 30 seconds (try it - stop now and think about it) absurd, has never been true, is not how anything has gotten done, and never will be true.
It's a meme, a cover story for not doing your part. It's our community, our society. It depends on each person, every one of us, every day.
IMHO, that theory is like many others today: It's attractive - it simplifies everything and even makes it quantifiable - but does not stand up to a moment's scrutiny.
Almost everything Coinbase has comes from their community: Liberty; peace; political functionality and stability; economic stability; the rule of law; property rights; the free market; the wealth of the market they sell to; the education and wealth of employees, customers, and partners (including the massive public education and healthcare systems - imagine how their company would survive Coronavirus without the public health system and eventual free vaccine); the physical infrastructure of housing, roads, food, power, etc., all kept functioning and safe; the incredible technology stack they build upon, from mathematics to basic literacy to electricity to materials to more proximate tech (the Internet, Web, TCP/IP, and of course the cryptocurrency technology). No matter what Coinbase does, they add only a sliver on top of what's come before.
It's just an absurd, transparent rationalization for selfishness to try to justify being a parasite, for not contributing to it and being responsible for making it work. Our community is us; nobody else will make it work. And it's sociopathic to say that, about part of our community, 'I don't care what happens to African-Americans'.
But being a sociopath and buying into this transparently false argument has become trendy and admired by a vast swath of powerful people in American business, as if ignoring problems will solve them. I used to wonder if they really were smarter than others, but recently I've concluded that they follow the herd and are easily manipulated as much as other people are (and I could have seen it earlier in financial bubbles, etc.). And as they've followed the herd in disparaging liberalism and postmodernism, rather than thinking critically about them, they've unilaterally disarmed themselves, willingly discarded the tools that would protect them from being deceived, confused, and led.