My purpose in this post is to check if I understood a particular aspect of this article correctly, and to relate it to another discussion here.
TO CHECK IF I UNDERSTOOD CORRECTLY:
Now, I think basically every large corporation is awful – similarly bad to the government.
I read “awful” and “bad” in this sentence as in line with the concept of significantly flawed rather than with the concept of thoroughly evil. I think it could be read either way in isolation but in context of other parts of the article and other things Elliot has written I think my interpretation is OK.
To me at least, being significantly flawed implies big corporations and the government have big opportunities for improvement. Whereas being thoroughly evil implies we’d be better off if they just ceased to exist.
So I don’t think Elliot meant that, for example, the world with people as they are today would be a better place without every large corporation or without the government. Just that they all have room to be doing a lot better than they currently are.
I didn’t find anything I think is incompatible with this interpretation of “awful” and “bad” (significantly flawed rather than thoroughly evil) and did find this statement which I think is compatible:
Our government is already good enough to be compatible with a much better society and it has mechanisms to allow reform and progress.
TO RELATE TO ANOTHER DISCUSSION:
I don’t think Elliot’s view of the world is dark and depressing.
Maybe people make the mistake of thinking it is because they don’t consider possible meanings of emotionally triggering words in sentences like the first one from the article I quoted. They have an emotional reaction to words like “awful” and “bad”, and just go with that emotion.
Needing to scrap every large corporation and the government and replace them in order for the world to get better would indeed be dark and depressing. It’s both really unlikely to actually happen and would result in tons of really bad stuff in the process if it did. If that’s what emotions tell you “awful” and “bad” imply and you don’t question that, then the article seems dark.
However, knowing that every large corporation and the government have significant flaws is helpful & offers at least the possibility that the flaws could be gradually improved without a hugely deadly and disruptive wholesale replacement. It’s not dark & depressing.