Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 289 posts

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#201

Post by PhasmaFelis »

PeachPlum wrote: post #190
coliveira wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very good explanation of why capitalism is an imoral system. Anyone who can't understand this simple fact is just losing their times. The shadier your scheme for making money, the further away you get (as long as you don't go to jail) because that's the whole nature of the beast.

amoral, not immoral but even then I disagree, just look at the life expectancy of the billions of people under capitalism. Milton Friedman - Is Capitalism Humane? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHPI1emZFVg

"The least of several evils" is not the same thing as "good".

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#202

Post by lostboys67 »

brighteyes wrote: post #41

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…

Well then you just set up a system where companies that are CNI have oversight at some level of course this does mean a lot more vetting and it can be abused like France declaring a yoghurt maker was CNI.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#203

Post by refurb »

clairity wrote: post #153
harryh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Whose morals? Yours? Mine? It's not easy to get people to agree on what is moral beyond things like murder.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#204

Post by antod »

lostboys67 wrote: post #196
megaman22 wrote: post #5

The tech industry has, historically and in aggregate, had pretty solid rates of returns. If I was sitting on a dwindling store of natural resources as my primary store of wealth, I would probably want to try to diversify that wealth into other areas and grow that wealth aggressively while my potentially limited income source is still highly profitable. I'm not sure that more nefarious aims need to be posited than sim…

Yes the new crown prince is positioning his country for when the oil runs out - this is no different to how Norway does it. Is it just me or does the NYC article sound screamly racist

You can't think of any other reasons apart from racism why people would think differently of Saudi Arabia vs Norway?

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#205

Post by lostboys67 »

gozur88 wrote: post #77

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?

And presumably all Americans should disinvest from all south American countries

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#206

Post by daniel-cussen »

lostboys67 wrote: post #200
daniel-cussen wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes perfect sense to me too. Islam forbids them from charging compound interest, but allows them to seek riches in the shared profits of successful ventures.

Its interest at all which is banned, which is why there are Sharia compliant bank accounts and investments.

No, they allow interest for inflation. A Muslim may ask for interest provided the end result is the same amount of specie, no matter how it's cast.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#207

Post by maneesh »

refurb wrote: post #203
clairity wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 n…

Whose morals? Yours? Mine? It's not easy to get people to agree on what is moral beyond things like murder.

Even murder...

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#208

Post by lostboys67 »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #206
lostboys67 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its interest at all which is banned, which is why there are Sharia compliant bank accounts and investments.

No, they allow interest for inflation. A Muslim may ask for interest provided the end result is the same amount of specie, no matter how it's cast.

That's interesting I sit corrected but who decides what to use as the inflation measure ?

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#210

Post by lostboys67 »

antod wrote: post #204
lostboys67 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the new crown prince is positioning his country for when the oil runs out - this is no different to how Norway does it. Is it just me or does the NYC article sound screamly racist

You can't think of any other reasons apart from racism why people would think differently of Saudi Arabia vs Norway?

You mean aside from tarring all Muslims or all Saudis as the same as ISIS (a millennial cult) and Norway isn't as pure as you might think - Scandinavia kept on with eugenics long after the rest of the world recoiled in horror
Post reply on HN