91–100 of 289 posts
This article is really, really light on reasons why you wouldn't take Saudi money. Is he really suggesting we reject money from a citizen of any country that's been "criticized for its human rights record"? Would there be any money left?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yep kind of confused to. The silicon valley is a for-profit sector, when they write "diversity, inclusiveness, fairness" and so forth on their banners they are very much qualifying this within a business context. People need to be a little more honest and accept that those slogans are marketing messages, nobody in the valley is seriously going to turn an investment away for moral reasons
I took that as people need to be a little more honest and accept that those slogans are lies and bullshit. This kind of attitude is exactly the problem. Sure, they are for profit, but since when is that the only thing that matters? I would never knowingly take blood money from a dictator, even if it meant I lived an impoverished life. If the company I worked for took such money, I would begin looking for alternate em…
don't get me wrong, I care about this as much as you do. I'm just saying that the valley itself is not the right place for this, it's a political matter. we shouldn't waste our time going on a deep introspection tour into 'tech values', they have a duty towards their shareholders as much as BP or Exxon.
Because it's a good investment, and Saudi Arabia is desperate to diversify their money before all the oil dries up. Why is this complicated?
The question is not why would the Saudis want to invest, it's why an industry that always talks about how progressive and innovative it is is so happy to compromise those values. This presents a conundrum. Tech companies are fond of pseudo-revolutionary mission statements that extol the virtues of diversity, tolerance, freedom of expression and other progressive ideals. They have argued that their technologies are pa…
This is what "taking money" means. You don't need to be more specific about the investor. You cannot take any money if you are not willing to give your soul in exchange. Even a $30k/year paycheck requires that in many regards.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if it isn’t nefarious, maybe we still shouldn’t let them profit off our liberal democracy while they exploit their own citizens, enslave foreigners, fund terrorism, and abuse women. Maybe we shouldn’t let them have their cake and eat it too. Make them pick between human rights and investing in the S&P500.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but we aren't innocent either. I'd say perhaps on a spectrum they are worse than us on human rights, but there was the Iraq war, Vietnam , etc. Are we supposed to no longer pay taxes or use government provided infrastructure?
SV companies didn't actively order/control invading other nations or violate human rights. In fact, they are very vocally against US/West doing such things.
But the sovereign funds from ME that are providing funding are pretty much the same people in charge of those nations.
Same reason they invest in Fox News—aim the weapon at your enemy, like Iran. It’s no coincidence the media is always screaming about Iran, who is actually more moderate than our supposed ally Saudi Arabia. It’s a way to buy themselves a free pass from criticism.
It may improve somewhat under Mohammed. But you know, starting from almost 0% it's really easy to improve and still be far, far away from 100%.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yep kind of confused to. The silicon valley is a for-profit sector, when they write "diversity, inclusiveness, fairness" and so forth on their banners they are very much qualifying this within a business context. People need to be a little more honest and accept that those slogans are marketing messages, nobody in the valley is seriously going to turn an investment away for moral reasons
Sometimes moral reasons can be the profitable decision if those morales are something that includes peoples economic decisions.
I can't think of an example that a modern corporation has done something against their benefit for purely for moral reasons.
This is the responsibility of effective government regulation and consumer choice. If we leave it up to the market, we will be continually disappointed.
At least we're getting some of the money back in investment.
But yeah, a major investor, especially in hard times can have clout and can influence a lot of things. With one suggestion...
Think!
There is something to this argument, but it's ruined. The author and many others don't like Saudi Arabia and Russia. That's the main reason for advocating a boycott of their investment money, because while the author mentions the poor human rights records of those two countries as the reason, there are plenty of other countries with such records. The main example of which is China, which is of course not mentioned. T…
> you should mention more than > the easiest targets, if only > to avoid the appearance of > bias You’re arguing for purity over pragmatism