Everybody knows what needs to be done. Parenthood needs to be sustainable for the parents. There’s just no political will to implement a policy that will only start paying off in 20+ years. Every politician kicks the can down the road, or implements half-hearted policies.

Edit: Just realised I posted this to the wrong instance comm 😅

  • iii@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 days ago

    And bigger companies are clearly in a better position to adapt to changes than smaller ones, so your argument is only reinforcing my point.

    How so? The replacement rate is shorter than in recorded history (1)

    It seems that the older corporations had a very hard time adapting to new technology, to the point that they’ve been replaced by new smaller ones that outpaced them in only 30 years?

    And it didn’t simply go “bankrupt”, it lost a literal war against the United Kingdom (the fourth Anglo-Dutch War).

    It also went bankrupt.

    *Note: around 1670 the VOC had 50k workers

    Of course you have to place it in historixal context: both in world population and in respect to other contemporary companies.

    • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      How so?

      A bigger business:

      • has more capital at its disposal to invest capturing a nascent market, created by changes in the economic landscape caused by tech?
      • has better chances to buy smaller businesses in other markets, so it’s ready in case its main market dies tomorrow due to technological disruption?
      • can survive temporary losses for longer than a smaller one, while it’s adapting itself?

      The replacement rate is shorter than in recorded history (1) (archive link)

      Data contradicting my claim would show that smaller businesses have a similar or better rate of survival in comparison with bigger businesses. Your link does not show that, it does not even compare smaller vs. bigger businesses, as it focuses solely on the S&P 500 bankruptcy over time.

      Note that your link confirms what I said here, as it shows big companies being eaten by biggER ones:

      • Increased buyout activity beginning in the 1980s certainly had a hand in shortening that life span
      • Rather, the report said, there will be an increase in M&A [merger and acquisition] as more of them team up to compete with the disruptors.
      • “We argue that disruption is nothing new but that the speed, complexity and global nature of it is,”
      • “but the increased pace of the disruption by companies like Amazon, Alphabet and Apple [i.e. GAFAM] today is causing the trend to accelerate even more.”

      It also went bankrupt.

      And the war totally had nothing to do with this, right. Nope, the VOC “just” went bankrupt, the UK snatching its stuff was totally irrelevant, and the VOC’s fate can be totally generalised for the sake of your “ackshyually, big biz also go bankrupt, see VOC.” /s

      Of course you have to place it in historixal context: both in world population

      If you did the maths beforehand, to know if your argument is sensible or bullshit (it’s the later), you’d know that Walmart is ~twice the size of the VOC in number of workers, even when normalised for the world pop. (500M back then.)

      But odds are you ain’t bringing context up because the context would be relevant here; you’re only grasping at straws.

      and in respect to other contemporary companies

      There was barely any global market back then, almost all companies would stick to their country of origin. The VOC was the anomaly, being the first multinational and being rather government-like. You got an elephant and 503499398988989387349 ants.

      Nowadays a Walmart or Unilever or Alphabet or Apple or Nestlé is not an exception. Those companies seised the economic activity of the world. You got a handful of blue whales, and most ants got the DDT.

      inb4 “then this shows that VOC was hueeeg for other companies lol lmao” - refer to what I said about it being extremely government-like, and fighting a literal government.


      Given that you brought up exactly zero relevant counterpoints, I’m not wasting my time further with this discussion - it’s simply unproductive.

      • iii@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        6 days ago

        Your link does not show that, it does not even compare smaller vs. bigger businesses

        It does, even if you fail to see it. In only 30 years, those small garage sized startups outpaced century old megacorporations.

        According to the logic: “Larger companies can better adapt, has more capital, can survive temporary losses, etc”, that should not be possible. We should be conversing on ExxonBook. Yet the examples are right there.