Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just about Apple. Apple is still headquartered in US. Thus, it's also a moral quandary for US, because American lawmakers can make it a more stark choice for Apple: they can pass a law saying that no American company can aid and abet human rights violations. Then the choice for Apple would be to operate in China and comply with laws of China, or operate in US and comply with laws of US. Is that too extreme?…
> We all remember how IBM helped implement Holocaust Do you have more details of this? I've never heard about it before.
Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
181–190 of 209 posts
Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A global company needs to be sensitive to these political/cultural differences and accommodate them. Global companies are instrumental in transmitting western values to the rest of the world. You can't antagonize host countries but at the same time you can't ignore the arc of the moral universe. Domestically, a great example is the economic repercussion for southern states that tried to pass trans bathroom laws. Co…
So by that logic, Chinese companies should push Chinese values on the rest of the world. Are you okay with that? And if not, what makes Western values special? Absent an independent moral authority (i.e. God of some sort), there's no way to say that Western values even should be spread. Absent an independent moral authority, pushing your values on everyone else is exactly what the Chinese government is doing. The tra…
I think the moral obligation to make the world a better place trumps the need to be tolerant or accommodating.
My family is from Bangladesh. My cousin, who is a woman, moved to Australia. She's way happier in a society that allows freedom and equal participation to women. She, in particular, had chaffed at the social restrictions imposed on women in Bangladesh. I don't need to invoke God to realize which way is better.
Bangladesh is an interesting example because it was founded on western principles: a secular democracy with freedom of religion, women's suffrage, etc. Over the years those ideals have been chipped away. In my view, people who equivocate on westernization, or apologize for the forces that oppose westernization under the banner of tolerance, in Bangladesh are doing something profoundly immoral. They take responsibility for depriving people of happiness and prosperity.
Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The CCP restricts free speech because it fears losing its ruling status. And that's China's own problem (or lack thereof) as a sovereign nation, not something for Apple or the US to decide. Not every country wants (or even works better) with a US style system, and interventionism has led to disastrous results in the not that far past.
So was apartheid.
Apartheid was the result of white western settlers screwing and mistreating over the local black population, after the region got colonized.
This is a single country, with its own culture, history and tradition, minding its own affairs.
And blacks were clearly against apartheid and fighting fiercely for decades. Have you talked to many locals in China and found out they were against their regime?
Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
#184Apple stood for privacy in the US where privacy is part of law. It didn't stand by privacy in China where privacy in some forms is prohibited as part of law. Asserting the US law in China would discount China's sovereignty, implicitly declaring "your principles are inferior to ours". A global company needs to be sensitive to these political/cultural differences and accommodate them. Even in the US where "privacy" is…
This amount of cultural relativism is silly and frankly just plain ignorant. China doesn't restrict free speech for cultural reasons. The CCP restricts free speech because it fears losing its ruling status.
This is difficult water to navigate.
Free speech, privacy and access to a free press are part of the legal and constitutional/meta-legal framework for many democratic systems of government. In principle and in practice. There are laws in the US guaranteeing these freedoms, and hundreds of years of common law supporting and interpreting them.
Subverting those freedoms in the US, is subverting the US' system of government, and ilegal. There are (as they demonstrated) legal channels to defending their users' rights within the US' legal framework because they exist in the US' legal system.
There are philosphical elements to this, universal & inalienable rights and freedoms. But, these are philosophical. In the US, Apple acted at the legal level, with a legal argument not a philosophical one.
China is not a democracy. These rights are not a part of their system of government and there is no legal way to defend rights that are not recognized in that country. This is not some postmodernist or nihilist relativism. It's just recognizing that different laws and rights exist in different countries.
I'm not sure what you expect from Apple. They could pull out of China altogether, on the grounds that China's laws are too immoral. They could try to promote their idea of what a government should be and what rights citizens should have. This amounts to calling for a revolution.
I don't think this is a reasonable expectation of a company. I don't think it will lead to a good place either. Apple are a computer company, not a revolutionary movement (1984 ad notwithstanding). The revolutionaries need to be (or not to be) Chinese citizens, not foreign companies.
Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
#185Apple stood for privacy in the US where privacy is part of law. It didn't stand by privacy in China where privacy in some forms is prohibited as part of law. Asserting the US law in China would discount China's sovereignty, implicitly declaring "your principles are inferior to ours". A global company needs to be sensitive to these political/cultural differences and accommodate them. Even in the US where "privacy" is…
exactly. Outsourcing foreign politics or issues of morality to a business is both harmful (because that's arguably not what a company's task is or ought to be) and it circumvents Chinese law. If issues of privacy in China are very important to you electing officials who's foreign policy reflects that is a better idea.
> Outsourcing foreign politics or issues of morality to a business is both harmful (because that's arguably not what a company's task is or ought to be)
Or in other words, corporations should at all costs be faceless?
Is it wrong, then, that Tim Cook uses his CEO creds to rally for LBGT rights? Should companies stop meddling with politics by pushing back against encryption backdoors? Should companies use every harmful additive that's not yet illegal to please shareholders?
Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
exactly. Outsourcing foreign politics or issues of morality to a business is both harmful (because that's arguably not what a company's task is or ought to be) and it circumvents Chinese law. If issues of privacy in China are very important to you electing officials who's foreign policy reflects that is a better idea.
that's arguably not what a company's task is or ought to be Ok, argue it. Why should a company, as a member of the society it's based in, be above criticism for taking immoral actions just because they happen somewhere else? And does that apply to any immoral action, or do you draw a line?
> And does that apply to any immoral action, or do you draw a line?
You're arguing in circles here. Immoral is in the eye of the beholder, culturally, so by defining something as "immoral" you're just labelling it as "bad" and asking somebody to justify decisions. That's a loaded question and a cheap rhetorical technique.
You could make an argument that since most governed people in China don't mind that they have limited freedom of speech, there is nothing immoral about it. It's not like there are riots breaking out in the streets often
Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
So was apartheid.
Apartheid was the result of white western settlers screwing and mistreating over the local black population, after the region got colonized. This is a single country, with its own culture, history and tradition, minding its own affairs. And blacks were clearly against apartheid and fighting fiercely for decades. Have you talked to many locals in China and found out they were against their regime?
>And blacks were clearly against apartheid and fighting fiercely for decades. Have you talked to many locals in China and found out they were against their regime?
No, they were all killed decades ago. Why does it matter if it is black vs white or chinese vs chinese? Sounds like a double standard to me.
Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
that's arguably not what a company's task is or ought to be Ok, argue it. Why should a company, as a member of the society it's based in, be above criticism for taking immoral actions just because they happen somewhere else? And does that apply to any immoral action, or do you draw a line?
> And does that apply to any immoral action, or do you draw a line? You're arguing in circles here. Immoral is in the eye of the beholder, culturally, so by defining something as "immoral" you're just labelling it as "bad" and asking somebody to justify decisions. That's a loaded question and a cheap rhetorical technique. You could make an argument that since most governed people in China don't mind that they have li…
No, I'm asking under Barrin92's own moral code: if there's nothing Apple could do that Barrin92 would find morally abhorrent and worth criticizing Apple for, assuming it was legal in the other country.
It's not like there are riots breaking out in the streets often
That's a funny position. So if the people actually hated it, but the State's repression mechanisms kept them in line, it would be moral?
Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
#189Interesting contrast to Google deciding to leave China. Apple has also chosen to use a China gov controlled cloud provider.
Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is free to this move for business reasons, that is certainly true. But they can no longer also claim the moral high ground as a defender of personal liberty. Human rights do not stop at international borders. They cannot have it both ways.
Apple never challenged actual law. To quote the article: > [Timothy D. Cook] made clear that Apple would obey American law — but only after trying to shape the law. In the case of China here, the law was already passed. Apple is just conforming to the law.
Great contrast to Google deciding to leave China.