The distinction is that now instead of having a public government choosing what information is controlling your beliefs, you have the shadow, corporate government far more insidiously painting your worldview, against which you have no defense at all (which is why they exist).
At least the “corporate government” is a devil-we-know. Corporations’ motives are transparent as can be: they seek profit. The government is much less transparent, made up of elected representatives and life-tenure bureaucrats with motives from glory to greed to laziness to misguided principle etc.
So you know that one is the Devil and untouchable. And you suspect the other might be as well.
Let’s not stretch the colloquialism too far. Whatever flaws corporations have, the government is rife with flaws of its own, and corporations are predictable.
Also of note:
Expert polling suggests that the issue is fairly uncertain:
Here are the results from 2013 (for a question about net consumer benefit), and here are results from 2014, asking more generally about whether it’s “a good idea”. Both show significant uncertainty, with the former leaning slightly opposed and the latter leaning more strongly in favor. I’d summarize as mostly uncertain, more likely good, but not because of consumer benefit.
Seriously, what do polls really mean to philosophers?
I floated down that one on one of those tourist boats where they explain all the buildings in 5 languages as you float by them. Not bad.
Do you mean philosophers who have an appropriate amount of epistemic humility? They should generally defer to experts in fields where they are not themselves experts, and thus to polls of those experts.
Nullius en Verba.
Who took the poll?
“Nine out of ten doctors recommend…”
The respondents are listed by name next to their responses, with links to their bios.
Again, you very unscientifically divert. I didn’t ask about who responded, but who formed and took the poll. Polls are used very thoroughly for deception (usually political) via tricky wording, forced dichotomy, interpretation bias, limited audience, ignored context,… And you know that.
One cannot trust anything merely said to be “a poll”, even if the claim is “a scientific poll”.
[list]Nullius en Verba.[/list:u]
and reach out and ask themThis isn’t an anonymous political poll. This is a poll of named experts, whose answers are public. If you have any doubt that any person listed actually answered the poll as they did, you can literally look up their contact info on their faculty bios .
You’re getting hung up on the word “poll”, and ascribing to this specific poll a lot of flaws that apply to most polls you’re familiar with but that very clearly don’t apply to this specific poll.
No. You are not seeing my objection.
A person designed the poll. Such polls are the trickery. Those who answer the polls are generally not aware of the trick and thus their answers are irrelevant.
Science knows that … and so do you.
It still sounds like you’re inappropriately unjustifiedly applying things you believe about polls in general to a specific poll that is different in several relevant ways.
The question is on the page. The respondents are on the page. Their answers are on the page. You have all the information you need about this specific poll to identify the specific “trick”, so start talking in specifics.
To a philosopher, until you know, you don’t know.
And in this case, the probability of complete legitimacy is pretty low anyway.
Corporations own and fund the government [ all the individuals in it] not the other way around.
Both “corporations” and “the government” are collections of people. They are not mutually exclusive sets, and the flow of influence within and between them are not as simple as one ‘owning’ the other.
Corporate lobbyists within congress and the senate. 
Sure, no doubt government is strongly influenced by corporations. But corporations are influenced by government, via laws, regulation, administrative and prosecutorial discretion, etc. Take copyright, for example: government decisions over the past couple centuries created whole industries, which then lobbied government for stronger copyright protection, and government obliged creating yet stronger corporations and lobbying interests.
It’s a bit arbitrary to point to either side of a feedback loop like that and say that one side is dominant. It may be true locally (e.g. on who wrote a certain bill), but globally the system evolves together.
This is where we’ll disagree, corporations and banks own the entirety of all government influencing all the very laws or regulations in place especially in so called democratic nations. [As far as banks and corporations are concerned more deregulation of business rather than regulation since that leaves them unhindered with impunity.]
Government historically use to be in charge of business, wealth creation, and private companies under monarchy but that all went away with parliamentary democracy where everything reversed where government is reduced to an organization that serves powerful private interests only. Democracy has never served the majority like it constantly claims to because it is an individualist philosophy to its core. In order for a majority of the population to be served you would need a collectivist model of government and monarchy was just that albeit an imperfect one but nonetheless worked a lot better than modern democracy. Contrary to popular belief monarchy was a collectivist form of government ruled by single individual much in the same way modern autocratic governments are.
In my studies of historical forms of government I’m starting to understand that collectivism are the best models where individualism models lead to disastrous environments that solely function to serve powerful individuals only at everybody else’s expense. This is all a consequence of liberalism and democracy where I know you’ll argue to death in support of both but the nonetheless this my perception on the subject.