Because money does not stink.
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
#152> By accepting these investments, tech companies get to revel in the branding glory of global good while taking billions from a government that stands against many of those goals
It seems to me that all (or at least almost all) of the companies cited in the article are now (as of Nov 2017) public companies, how are they supposed to not accept investments? On the one hand I understand the criticism because many of those investments came before those companies went public (e.g. the one, cited in the article, that Twitter took in 2011) but what would be the proposed action now? The article seemed to me a bit simplistic.
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article is really asking "why does the tech industry accept Saudi money?", not "why does Saudi Arabia invest in tech companies?"
Same answer: simple avarice. There is a lot of Saudi money and they are willing to invest it. And their money is just as good for hiring programmers and renting servers as anyone else's.
> And their money is just as good for hiring programmers and renting servers as anyone else's.
maybe you didn't mean it this way, but i was struck by the nonchalance of this statement, as if being able to spend money justifies taking the investment. and i presume that's exactly why the article was written, to question that kind of stance.
now i love tech, and will defend our ability to progress and advance and make new things where there were none. and sometimes that requires compromise, like taking money from flawed people and institutions (as we all are). but none of us gets a free pass from morality, not even in business. these need to be considered, weighed and balanced decisions.
just because we codify our morality in law and abdicate enforcement to police doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold each other acccountable as well. in fact, holding each other accountable is crucial to ensuring a fair and just society. sometimes we must sacrifice a bit today to make sure we have justice tomorrow. a functioning society requires that we keep each others' avarice in check.
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#154Earlier 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.
that awkward moment when you realize whataboutism has been a valid argument for a half century
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#155Honestly, if someone offers you 300 million plus would you say no, because this someone belongs to a different culture group? The discussion as well as the headline of the article seems quite strange. I mean you want a free market or not. If you want, then all these examples should make you proud not worried.
So, not respecting human rights is a cultural difference we should accept? And if I want free markets, and I notice that free markets lead to people being murdered, then I should be proud when people do get murdered? Otherwise I would necessarily have to reject free markets? Or what exactly is your point?
No what is your point.
(a) Why does paying $300mio to Twitter results in people getting killed?
(b) Why do you think your government/companies/people would do better?
(c) What you should be proud of if you like free markets is that everybody with money and interest in a company can put their money in that company. In a non-free market like China you are way more limited with foreign investments.
(d) "Free" means everybody can do what they want. If you want to limit what people are doing you are not talking free markets. That's in fact a reasonable argument from the Socialist spectrum. Don't allow people to run around freely, harming themselves and each other. One really has to decide what one likes in that spectrum. Each direction has their own pros and cons.
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kind of agree with you, but I think you muddy your argument by getting into the weeds somewhat. For me this whole thing is pretty simple - where do you draw your line? I mean, off the top of my head here's a rough list, in my extremely rough estimation, of human rights offenders from bad to good: badness country 100% DPRK 90% Saudi Arabia 80% Dubai 70% Russia 60% China 50% USA 40% India 30% Japan 20% Australia 10%…
And how do we make countries high up on that list go down? Economic isolationism surely isn't the answer - seeing as North Korea is #1 on that list. Notice that the countries lowest on your list of badness have the closest ties to Western countries (with the exception of Antarctica). Saudi Arabia becoming more closely tied economically to Western countries is an opportunity to lessen its "badness" on your scale. Rece…
There is a reason that countries like South Africa would be substantially less high on that list than they used to be 25 years ago, and increasing economic -and political- isolation is definitely one of the reasons it changed.
We see in political science that the definition of nations is somewhat circular - for a country to meaningfully exist, its recognition of a significant number of other countries is almost an essential feature. This is the reason that projects like Sealand fail, and also why revolutions attract so much international meddling.
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kind of agree with you, but I think you muddy your argument by getting into the weeds somewhat. For me this whole thing is pretty simple - where do you draw your line? I mean, off the top of my head here's a rough list, in my extremely rough estimation, of human rights offenders from bad to good: badness country 100% DPRK 90% Saudi Arabia 80% Dubai 70% Russia 60% China 50% USA 40% India 30% Japan 20% Australia 10%…
And how do we make countries high up on that list go down? Economic isolationism surely isn't the answer - seeing as North Korea is #1 on that list. Notice that the countries lowest on your list of badness have the closest ties to Western countries (with the exception of Antarctica). Saudi Arabia becoming more closely tied economically to Western countries is an opportunity to lessen its "badness" on your scale. Rece…
So do you think that if the US did more business with Saudi’s Arabia this would improve their human rights record?
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kind of agree with you, but I think you muddy your argument by getting into the weeds somewhat. For me this whole thing is pretty simple - where do you draw your line? I mean, off the top of my head here's a rough list, in my extremely rough estimation, of human rights offenders from bad to good: badness country 100% DPRK 90% Saudi Arabia 80% Dubai 70% Russia 60% China 50% USA 40% India 30% Japan 20% Australia 10%…
And how do we make countries high up on that list go down? Economic isolationism surely isn't the answer - seeing as North Korea is #1 on that list. Notice that the countries lowest on your list of badness have the closest ties to Western countries (with the exception of Antarctica). Saudi Arabia becoming more closely tied economically to Western countries is an opportunity to lessen its "badness" on your scale. Rece…
You make good points. Encouraging closer two-way ties might indeed do what you say. It certainly might make your "death to america!" chants a little less enthusiastic if half your country's pension fund was invested there. "Destroy the Great Satan! Except, uh, San Francisco!"
Another factor of course is "How much is this country actively trying to undermine/is a potential enemy of my own?" which probably for most countries we'd think of as "western" puts Russia, and to a lesser extent China, at the top of the list.
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#159I 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.
> Do we know this somehow? Beyond a doubt, if they have power they will use it.
I remember reading this somewhere, but I can't find a source. It is conceivable they may choose to be more "activist" with their holdings in the future, but thus far I can't think of any examples of them using their holdings to exert influence over the company's they invested in. Certainly they must be cognizant of the fact that doing so at this time would make most companies reluctant to accept their investment.
Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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?
> Even if you would need this money to keep your own wife and children alive?
If I'd live under circumstances where I indeed had no other choice, maybe. Luckily, I live in Western society, so the answer to your question is "can't happen here".