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

nytimes.com

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

#221

Post by jernfrost »

aptidude187 wrote: post #172

Talking about human rights violations but not even mentioning Israel? This is really some agenda driven piece, don‘t insult the reader‘s intelligence.

I disagree. The human rights abuses of Israel are if anything over reported. How often do you e.g. hear about Israeli abuses vs Sri Lanken, Indonesian etc?

No country had gotten as many UN resolutions or attempts of it against itself despite in the grand scheme of things they don’t make the top 10. Typically these resolutions are filed by arab countries with far worse humanitarian record.

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

#222

Post by Boothroid »

conanbatt wrote: post #145
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…

I don't get the reasoning to be against it. If your goal is "global liberation", taking money from oppressive regimes its a pretty darn fast way to do it. You make the oppressors pay for the future liberation. We should applaud if thats whats happening.

More likely you make yourself a slave to that regime.

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

#223

Post by Boothroid »

jernfrost wrote: post #217
manfredo wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It isn’t about ties but about history, culture, traditions and wealth. Take my home country Norway, since we are on the list ;-) It is one of the richest countries in the world as well as most equal which tends to lower corruption. Poverty and inequality raise it. But of course history and culture matters too. Norwegians have had a reputation for honesty for hundreds of years. In some ways it is self perpetuating. Th…

Now if Norway would stop turning beautiful whales into whale burgers..

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

#224

Post by daniel-cussen »

lostboys67 wrote: post #208
daniel-cussen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

Same amount of specie, same amount gold or other precious metal.

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

#225

Post by antod »

lostboys67 wrote: post #210
antod wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You seem to be picking very narrow but randomly arbitrary things to compare both countries with, or making wild assumptions about what others would use to compare them on.

How about an overall view of broader things like human rights, corruption, democracy etc?

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

#226

Post by reacweb »

Boothroid wrote: post #223
jernfrost wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t about ties but about history, culture, traditions and wealth. Take my home country Norway, since we are on the list ;-) It is one of the richest countries in the world as well as most equal which tends to lower corruption. Poverty and inequality raise it. But of course history and culture matters too. Norwegians have had a reputation for honesty for hundreds of years. In some ways it is self perpetuating. Th…

Now if Norway would stop turning beautiful whales into whale burgers..

And stop polluting to produce salmon so bad they exclusively go to export.

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

#227

Post by TeMPOraL »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #198
hedonistbot wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but none of us gets a free pass from morality, not even in business What? That's news to me. What about the entire defence industry? What about all the politicians that take a cushy job in the companies they helped during their time in office and who can be directly held accountable by the electorate? And why should anyone question the Saudis when they just signed a multi billion dollar weapon deal with the US gove…

I honestly can't tell if you're being ironic, or claiming that two wrongs make a right.

I think they have the correct understanding of the is/ought dichotomy. You absolutely shouldn't get a free pass from morality. It doesn't change the fact that, most of the time, you absolutely do.

To the list of examples of people getting a free pass from morality, I'd add the entire advertising industry, and quite a lot of stuff done in journalism. And many small business owners.

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

#228

Post by xbmcuser »

golergka wrote: post #183
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…

> but none of us gets a free pass from morality, not even in business. What? It's certainly not the business role to make any moral decisions - while we don't yet have true simple responsibility principle in our society, we're thankfully have some separation of responsibility. If you think that a certain country is immoral and we shouldn't do business with it, lobby for sanctions - this way all businesses will have t…

US government has proped up Saudia for years US states and cities and have taken billions in investment form Arab countries I don't get why this question is being asked of the US tech industry alone.

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

#229

Post by rorykoehler »

mseebach wrote: post #216
rorykoehler wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes it's whataboutism. Human rights violations aren't binary and the Saudi variety is in a different class entirely from the US.

>different class entirely from the US

Could you elaborate how you came to this conclusion?

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

#230

Post by hackerguy99 »

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…

HackerNews: where the CEO of Wells Fargo should see the guillotine for pushy salesmen, but taking money from regimes with a century of human rights abuses is ok.
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