All Digg-like sites are listed on http://www.digg-like.com

Spike Lee called, he wants his URL back.

“On the other end of the spectrum, anyone wearing and selling red stuff is celebrated because they, and apparently they alone, care about people with AIDS”

Uh…us colorblind people…did not know THAT! lol

It seems to me that its a mistake to call an organization that tries to make a living while making the world a better place hypocritical, just for that.. I’d sight micro loans as an example.. tech crunch, of all places, should be aware of this new sorta movement in business…

I don’t know what I think of dotherightthing.com, or it’s approach.. I think an awful lot of criticism that a lot of people give for people in government and business is often, in part, has to do with not really understanding business and government. I suppose that gives me a somewhat elitist perspective.. but I wonder what social media’s response to that issue might be.. how do you maximize the wisdom of the masses and minimize the “lets go have a lynching” sorta mentality.. which I suppose is a kind of structural challenge for how you think about principles of.. lets say the architecture of social interaction inside of social media space? So I imagine this is dotherightthing.com’s challenge.

I think you can say that.. Adam Smith was a moral philosopher and talked about a situation where in self interest helped the collective good… when self interest works against the collective good.. is there where the roll for legislation is? What of the weakness of government organizations ability to deal with these sorts of issues? I wonder if, in principle, what we are seeing in the current direction of technology’s evolution.. is power diffusion.. how that will fundamentally change the rules of the game.. is it now going to be about bread and circus?

I think these are all interesting questions and challenges.. that on some level we will all participate in working out.. and I think its at least good to see the dotherightthing.com out there.. because if it works or not it’ll teach us something, one hopes.

I think this is actually a pretty nifty idea. Many companies act with impunity because the “little guy” has no recourse. This site could allow immoral actions to be targeted. Digg already is a forum for this type of thing - all the time different companies are being lambasted for unethical behavior.

whenever I see too many people grouping together and pointing a finger at others, I get nervous

that’s fine, but who are you protecting in your protest? the incredibly powerful or the relatively weak? do corporations need protection from the rabble? are Walmart and ExxonMobileWhatever oppressed people, unable to get their word out?

Corporations can crush individual liberty just as easily as any government can. And you don’t have to go to a diamond mine in Sierra Leone to see it. For a recent example of the power of corporations over individuals, just google “spocko’s brain”.

Speaking of the relative strength of corporations to governments, Thomas Jefferson said, “I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

Hear hear, brother.

Why bristle at the criticism of a corporation - an entity which necessarily derives its power to coerce from the illegitimate existence/authority of the state? To me that doesn’t make any sense, especially for a self-described ‘radical libertarian’.

Were Jon Stewart an anarchist, he might paraphrase:

Corporations and governments? ….uhh, scary.
Individual citizens acting in concert for change? …uhhhh, not so much.

p.s. I saw another shockingly good clip on al Jazeera English tv. I get the RealVideo internet feed. Of particular interest to this blog’s readers would be their program, ‘The Listening Post’, which often covers the blogosphere, podcasting, and other internet phenomenon like SL, etc. Just about every time I turn it on I’m floored again that they’re actually covering what they’re covering. It’s like all of us on this blog - of every political stripe - decided together what we think should be on tv. ‘Everywoman’, ‘People and Power’, and ‘Witness’ are other regular programs that are outstanding. I need to work as an evangelizer for those guys. Unreal.

We’ve graduated from broadcast radio (and all that came before it), to television & telephone, to email, to the web, and now to the 2-way web where there are forums galore, every other web page has a comment section, wikipedia, YouTube, etc etc etc.

As we go from 1-way broadcast media (passive acceptance of what a small group has to say) to 2-way many2many media (everyone has a voice, with varying amounts of accountability in how they use it), is it any surprise that everyone seems to have a few rants in them … and some people have a LOT of rants in them?

It’s gonna take us all a little time to learn to use our newfound voices. At first we’re gonna do a lot of shouting and screaming. I predict that in time we (the worldwide we) will gain some control of our newfound powers, and the stridency will dampen down a bit.

Wow, amazing how when someone’s opinion differs from someone else, they must be immediately labeled - for example, “rabid techno-libertarianism.” This translates into “I don’t really have a response that shows I’m capable of analyzing this from any other viewpoint than my own, so I’ll throw in a word or phrase I read online and that’ll show ‘em I’m really smart.” Yikes. I hate when I forget, and start assuming that just because someone is technologically-savvy or literate, that it translates into some advanced mindset. My mistake. Carry on. Let’s make some more rash judgments just because someone else says they’re smug or self-serving. WE ARE SHEEP, WE MUST FOLLOW. Bahhh.

It seems to me that the dotherightthing.com website is wide open to anyone with any opinion. To say that people with dissenting opinions will be driven out is a presumption with no basis. This is a nascent online community — give it a chance to grow.

Holding corporations accountable in the court of public opinion is a necessary component of a functioning marketplace. It’s not consistent with an overall libertarian outlook to say that we don’t have the right to make public the antisocial behavior of corporations. In my opinion, it’s naive to believe that a market without full and accurate information about the products for sale and the companies that make them will function properly.

If dotherigththing.com acts as to inform the marketplace, then I’m all for it. In addition, I think it may help inform companies about their customer’s values. If so, I’m all for that too. I don’t see anything wrong with a two way dialog between consumers and producers.

“Yes. You actually nailed it. I am a radical libertarian actually. I don’t get into politics very often on this site, but whenever I see too many people grouping together and pointing a finger at others, I get nervous. There are too many historical examples of really, really bad stuff happening once people start doing this.”

Ugh. “Radical libertarian” is fancy talk for just looking out for yourself (and conveniently forgetting all the help you got yourself along the way). It’s the very definition of smugness and has provided more examples of “really, really bad stuff” than anything ever perpetrated by a bunch of do-gooders.

One of the ‘do-gooders’ — and proud to be so.

There’s being a libertarian, Michael, and then there’s just being a dick. You didn’t mention that the “misguided user” you lament began his article with “Do the right thing is adding to the misguided perception…”

Oh my, DtRT users didn’t appreciate someone trying to rip apart the site they bothered to register with? What horror! What unfairness! Why, I just may vote for Harry Browne to spite them!

“I’m guessing people like that will be quickly beaten out of dotherightthing.com, leaving a smug nest of Toyota Pious driving do-gooders behind to fix all of our problems by complaining about them in unison.”

Priceless.

Mike,

I’m sparing you of personal attacks re: this post. You’ve already had your fair share.

My comment is that one of the most terrific things about the internet and web 2.0 is that is has the ability to democratize. In this case, dotherightthing gives people the power to express their concerns about the evil ways of big business. Isn’t that a good thing?

I haven’t explored it yet, but I like the idea. It provides another incentive for corporations to act like nice guys.

Haha I figured this article would bring out all the liberals with their comments. Smug comments.

I like the layout, and it never hurts to give people a forum to voice their opinions. Some of the better companies will listen and actually do something when necessary.

I’m not entirely sure why various DTRT fanboys are outraged at Michael — despite the fact that he disagrees with the mission of DTRT, he is actually being classy.

I mean, he didn’t have to post about them at all, yet he did.

And if you’re offended by his choice of words, then you probably missed out on the Smug Alert! episode on South Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smug_Alert!), which Arrington pretty much nailed whilst being incognito.

In addition, the contemporary mob mentality that Arrington briefly mentioned (and loathes) is party agnostic, as individuals like Bill O’Reilly and Michael Moore are both guilty of such tomfoolery (http://colbertondemand.com/specials/Colbert_On_OReilly).

So crack open a non-imported bottle of recycled urine, oh sultans of self-appointed importantness… because we all know the only cure to not being hugged as a kid is to hang out with a bunch of anti-trade advocates who writhe in their own smug.

@Tim Swanson:

__I’m not entirely sure why various DTRT fanboys are outraged at Michael — despite the fact that he disagrees with the mission of DTRT, he is actually being classy.__

I think you’re confusing “classy” with “condescending”. Usually the posts on TechCrunch discuss the user interface of cool new web applications in an engaging, illuminating way. This is a cool new web app, with an interesting interface and an interesting idea. But the article is nothing but bitter condescension towards the site based solely on the political leanings of its user base.

Disappointing.

My company increased the work week to 40 from 35, not including the lunch hour without an increase in salary, and most people have not gotten a raise or decent raise in a few years. I use to like to work more hours on a “as need” basis. They changed the format for performance appraisels to cover the fact they can’t give us more money, we were rated on a “Global Basis”, which means it’s all spread out thinner than before. Then I have people who do not even know my and I have to depend on my boss to give the presentation of his life to get me more money against guys 20 years younger and look at him as Old Dog that can’t learn new tricks, in the past your review and the monies they decided to give you were separate, we are all works in progress and putting the blame the employee cause you can’t give me more money, then don’t tell me I needs improvement cause you feel bad for not being able to give me a raise. I have never gotten a needs improvement, stop projecting on me, it ain’t right. Dear corporations, you have to spend money to make money. The backbone of your company(technology) are the ones that need the raises then most of “business” side. While the CEO, Traders get million dollar bonuses, when all I want is at least 5 to 10 grand more to make up for the past 5 years in lacks of raises and outsourcing and resourcing. Yes you are saving tons of money for automation, who do you think helped you get their quicker, your technology team. It just doesn’t have to go down like this. Peace.