Something I've been thinking about recently: most progressives would probably say that guns are at least as bad for society as social media, but while they talk about Mark Zuckerberg all the time it has never even occurred to them that they don't even know who runs Smith & Wesson
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Replying to @webdevMason
Zuckerberg is different because he also controls a majority of the voting shares. Smith & Wesson has been owned by various private equity firms and is now a subsidiary of a larger group, so going after their CEO is basically pointless.
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Replying to @rob_knight @webdevMason
What percentage would you say have (a) thought about it -> looked into it -> decided it's pointless to do anything vs. (b) not even thought about it?
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Replying to @RojasGorky @webdevMason
In any group, the percentage of people doing from-first-principles thinking about the group activity is very small. It doesn’t prove anything special in this case.
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There's a process of discovery, where people try to target certain companies, industries etc. for criticism, and recruit others to help them. People have tried this with the gun industry.
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But do you go after the CEO of Smith & Wesson? CEO of the private equity company that happened to own them at the time, or their current parent co.? But CEO has little influence, so maybe the board? Major shareholders? *Their* CEOs? (infinite regress begins)
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Maybe the manufacturer is the wrong place to attack. Maybe the retailers? The local gun shop guy? Some success has been had with persuading certain mainstream-but-gun-adjacent stores reducing gun availability.
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Dick's Sporting Goods is a good example. But it's worth noting that their Chairman and CEO is the founder's son.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dicks-sporting-goods-to-stop-selling-guns-in-125-stores/ …
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Replying to @rob_knight @RojasGorky
I don't think you understood my point, but I can't lay it out any clearer. You're arguing over whether orange is a good color for clothing, and I'm trying to make a point about how many people seem to be unknowingly colorblind.
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Replying to @webdevMason @RojasGorky
I took your point to be that people have some desire to change both FB and S&W, but they only engage in personal criticism of FB's CEO and not that of S&W, and they are unreflective about why this might be.
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No, I don't actually think they effectively have any desire to change Smith & Wesson — because most of the time, they barely remember that something like Smith & Wesson even exists. Their attention is very effectively redirected to e.g. the NRA.
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Gun sales are spread out across some 15 companies with the top 3 having similar market share of ~13% while Facebook has 67% with one person at the top. It makes sense for people to target the loci of policy control, Zukerberg/NRA.
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The brilliant thing about the NRA is that it's as much a hobbiest membership org as it is a lobbying group. Imagine if Zuck were able to divert all the outrage he gets toward a group of happy Facebook users, without even making it clear he was doing that — it's very, very smart.
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