• 0 Posts
  • 131 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: January 26th, 2024

help-circle
  • though I’m not sure I’d call it discrimination.

    It most definitely is discrimination. Because discrimination is “treating two things differently according to a discriminator”. Such as living alone or with a registered partner.

    Now, the purpose of this is obvious (having a child is expensive and a good thing in the state’s eyes). Such cases where the discrimination “makes sense” (as it evens the playing field isntead of skewing it further) is usually termed as “positive” discrimination.

    But as it technically fits the core requirement of discrimination, it is discrimination.


















  • When the company’s immune to accountability […] backlash changes nothing.

    Not really. Backlash is important because it shows there’s an alternative. And not to the company - the company won’t change. But its users, customers and consumers just might.

    It creates publicity, which triggers people to talk and think about the issue.

    Which is a good thing as well as a driver of change.

    Boycotts are also effective. The only problem is, huge companies have their fingers in multiple jars (industries, brands, etc.) and their main customers are other companies.

    This gives them a great dose of stability. But if people were to suddenly boycott all of say Nestle’s brands, stores wouldn’t order new Nestle stock.

    There’s also no need for extreme backlash in some cases. Just look at Walmart or Microsoft.

    Microsoft is bleeding users at a record rate. Sure, the year of the Linux desktop is still not here, but Linux market share has been rising dramatically lately. Why?

    Because Microsoft keeps shooting itself in the foot.

    Walmart is a similar story.

    There’s something about huge consumer-facing companies that makes them extremely vulnerable to losing focus and falling out with consumers.

    If some more Boeings fell out of the sky and not just one or two a few years ago, airlines would be looking to clear thenselves of all Boeing stock. This wouldn’t even need backlash.

    Backlash is a source of bad PR. And bad PR causes customer loss. That’s profit loss. That’s a bad credit score. Hell, even the government might take a look and find some issues they’d like to check out!

    As you can see, this can all spiral out of proportion.

    And backlash is the first step in this story.


  • The “doppelganger problem” is really why this is not an easy issue to answer

    I wouldn’t agree. Sure, Taylor Swift would own her likeness. But so would her doppleganger.

    This could be done on a nonsensical basis such as first-dibs or whose ever is the most well-known, but the only logical option is that both are protected.

    So if our Taylor doppleganger goes around just looking and existing with an appearance closely matching Taylor’s, she’s protected under her own likeness.

    If she goes on to claim of being Taylor Swift and swindles people, that’s a seperate issue dealt with impersonation statutes.

    Even cosplaying as they did with Dolly Parton would be protected under free speech/expression.

    Since these protections already exist, a right to likeness only really stops the deepfakes, which is exactly the point.


  • It also used to be that if one part of such a contract was found to be illegal, the entire thing would be thrown out, not any more.

    Not necessarily.

    A contract is supposed to be a mutually-beneficial arrangement. I sell you a car for its market value. I work for you for a market price on my time for the position and my expertise.

    If there’s a small mistake both sides are willing to amend - there probably won’t even be a suit.

    Even if there is a suit, most places’ laws prefer nudging toe contract to the side “less off” in such cases.

    Only when there are unreasonable demands by one side, or the contract is so one-sided it can’t be amended is when it gets thrown out completely.

    Which is supposed to be almost never.

    Therefore, I don’t think the rules themselves changed as much as the goalposts and the reasonableness window have. Quality of life and purchase power is decreasing steadily basically since Reagan.

    Contemporary EULAs are taken as acceptable and a fact of life when even 10 years ago T&Cs were laughed at which were much less unreasonable in comparison.

    Other types of contracts follow the same general direction, with employment ones being among the absolute worst.