Maybe we should ask how human rights abuses plan to persist if their proponents are funding new platforms of self expression and better flows of information that offer tremendous empowerment for the average person to learn about and speak out against such injustices. This seems a poor strategy if the goal is to keep the people ignorant and subject to the ancient stupidity of religious dogma.
Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
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Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#132Is it fair/unfair to chalk this down to plain objectivism? That the source of money isnt that important as long as it gives me a chance to Change The World™..?
You're right, it doesn't matter. Thirty years ago it didn't matter, there was no such thing as criminalizing the source of money before then. This is a fake stigma, you don't have to rationalize it either.
Unparalleled economic growth continued to happen because it didn't matter to anyone of importance and status.
Whatever fake stigmas were shoved down the throats of the morally subscribed underclass only serve to keep them squabbling and maintaining the social and economic order which has always been here.
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The money from regimes that have been criticized for their human rights records TBF the US well and truly falls into that category too.
classic whatabout-ism that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and more importantly doesn't matter. "America is also bad!" would not be a defense to selling chemical weapons to Hussein. It's not a defense to helping build the Great Firewall. Your actions' consequences are your fault.
It's not whatabout-ism. The question was why is Saudi money accepted. Human-rights violations is totally irrelevant. If it were a leading concern then companies couldn't accept American money either. SpaceX basically couldn't exist. Humans rights is about political power nothing else. Saudis are already dancing to the USA's tune so the US doesn't roll out the human rights and democracy trope. Instead they trade.
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#134No, its time to stop pretending that the "tech industry" is some sort of champion of freedom and goodness. There is nothing inherently good about tech or the tech industry. Governed properly, platforms and services like Twitter and Google can be valuable tools in creating and sustaining a free and open society. Nothing about their behavior suggests this is the case. Virtually every tech company has crumbled without much hesitation when put under pressure from authoritarian governments from China to the United States. Not only are these tech platforms quick to acquiesce to the requests(and threats) from governments, but they have proven just as willing to engage in shady and subversive practices to support their business model (and those of their advertisers and clients).
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#135[deleted]
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#136I think you could argue that it is actually inhumane to deny certain people the right to investment gains from american companies. Sure you may not like the Saudi Arabian government but ultimately they are trying to create a plan to secure the future of real people who are not all evil, though it may look that way from our cultural vantage point. The Saudis haven’t tended to try and influence their investments, they…
> ultimately they are trying to create a plan to secure the future of real people
I think you have a point in general, but let's not take the proclamations at face value.
> The Saudis haven’t tended to try and influence their investments, they are mostly a silent investor so far
Do we know this somehow? Beyond a doubt, if they have power they will use it.
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#137Because 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…
> it is is so happy to compromise those values.
I'm reminded of the "values of the carphone warehouse [of which there are none]" bit.
Employees have values. Companies have employees and assets. They are a moral compromise by their very nature. Big (public) companies especially, have little interest in being "ethical", as by their sheer size, their economical duties are enormous.
I do believe this would dwarf any concerns short of... Well, what issue can you have that's big enough to risk the livelihoods of thousands or millions? I can think of none.
(I'm trying to describe things as they are, not as I would like them. The lesson is that to change the way companies behave you have to change all of society. In my humble opinion, "values" are the result required for homeostatis, and almost never the motivators.)
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would never knowingly take blood money from a dictator, even if it meant I lived an impoverished life. Even if you would need this money to keep your own wife and children alive?
The point is made in the article that a lot of this money was not taken in order to stay alive at all. The concrete example is Slack taking $250 million that they haven't even earmarked for anything in particular, just "operational flexibility". It's a nice play on emotions to bring up "wife and children", but that's not reality here.
The claim GP was responding to was a "never" claim, not a "not if it was just to bank $250MM without any specific allocation for it".
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Iran may be moderate, but they are also aligned with Russia. I'd like Iran to align with the West, but too many sides are in their trenches.
> "Iran may be moderate, but they are also aligned with Russia." Why is that a problem? The Cold War is over. The Russian influence on the world stage is not what it once was (China has definitely superseded it), and it's a capitalist society so their interests are mostly aligned with capitalist societies elsewhere.
> [Russia is] a capitalist society so their interests are mostly aligned with capitalist societies elsewhere.
Clearly their interests are not aligned with most capitalist societies, including the ones in Europe, East Asia, and the U.S. Russia overtly calls these nations their enemies, those nations see Russia as a threat, and Russia regularly threatens them militarily and interferes in their domestic politics at an extreme level (short of war).
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that even if you have benevolent leaders in charge of the major players in a market, all it does is create opportunity for some immoral actor to enter the market to realize the profit opportunity. 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.…
Google leaving China may be such an exemple, although it's always possible that there were other reasons.
Google leaving china might be an example in favor of my point...the moral decision there may have also been the profitable decision.