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An update on YC China

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: An update on YC China

#301

Post by matt4077 »

smashah wrote: post #226
undefined3840 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain. Also this story of a Chinese Stanford professor/investor’s “suicide” last year is quite the story. There’s a potential safety issue here too. https://www.forbes.com/sites/arthurherman/2018/12/13/a-death...

> It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain. Same sentiment for Saudi investors? Same for Israeli? People have different lines and I'm sure soon founders will be doing a great more DD in this new age of outwardly conscious capitalism. I'm patiently waiting for the tweet thread/medium article of a successful founder pointing out all t…

> Same sentiment for Saudi investors? Same for Israeli?

"Yes" & "Possibly, but being open to investor' individual behaviour to supersede their country's"

See: it's not that difficult. One man's slippery slope is another's perfect hill for early morning skiing.

Re: An update on YC China

#302

Post by pengstrom »

icelancer wrote: post #288
AJ007 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to dig up one of my old comments about YC China, because I specifically recall this one. I think the issue isn't one elephant in the room, it is elephants. My comment from August 15, 2018: "I would like to see a statement that YC China will not discriminate based on ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation and more importantly will not support startups which create technology which make doing so easie…

The idea that this kind of equality is going to be a thing in China is putting the cart about 200 miles ahead of the horse.

Then don't do business with them? Not enforcing basic human rights is not a good look.

Re: An update on YC China

#303

Post by pengstrom »

ClemFandango wrote: post #222
realusername wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain. Because that's pushing the line further and further of what the CCP can make people accept.

Business won't be the one to push the change on this attitude. It has to be people, or at best government. Most companies are morally agnostic, they only follow the money, you can judge them for it either way, but it's the truth.

So if things are bad, do nothing? We in the west have the responsibilty to take a hard stance on what's acceptable.

Re: An update on YC China

#304

Post by baybal2 »

derefr wrote: post #84
cthor wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say they're delusional. Everyone made this assumption in the '90s, that prosperity necessarily lead to freedom. 20 years later that assumption doesn't look so good.

Maybe people in the 90s assumed "prosperity" in general would be a panacea; but the hypothesis here isn't really to do with GDP more generally (because that can all be generated and captured by the state, as in middle-eastern oil-producing countries) but rather to do with a certain inevitable demographic shift. China has already started on a shift called industrialization : a massive demographic shift from poverty-cl…

> But, despite that phase being a ways away, it's also seemingly inevitable. We've never seen a country get stuck in the industrialization phase once it's truly begun. It's finite by definition—the same forces that create this phase of growth, push a country through and past it.

No, no, no, each and every country that deindustrialised, did so for their own, individual reasons.

And you have Japan, Germany, and Switzerland — all developed countries with substantial industry.

Most countries that did deindustrialise, did so because they lost industrial competition. Their industries were too uncompetitive to stick around for anything else, but cost. This is how US lost its steel, in which it once was a global leader.

Re: An update on YC China

#305

Post by throwaway2048 »

undefined3840 wrote: post #282
bg4 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain. I know right? I mean, it's not my liver that's being harvested...

You act like that doesn’t happen here...I just read a story in the LA times on how organs are being harvested from the recently deceased before a proper investigation can take place

they execute people solely to harvest their organs systematically, just because situations where organ harvesting happening before a proper death investigation takes place in the USA have occurred (and are likely illegal and irregular), does not in any way make them comparable.

Re: An update on YC China

#307

Post by indemnity »

spangry wrote: post #263
archibaldJ wrote: post #227

OP here (no affiliation with YC in anyway), posted the link because was surprised it wasn't already on HN. I first got to know about it on WeChat actually. There was an announcement from the official WeChat account of YC China in regard to the split-up (link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SnSsli_ZGo0yI58YD-ddaw ), though the announcement took a much more positive and exciting tone than its English counterpart. The annou…

Genuinely curious, what is "the Chinese way"?

An ineffable, inexplicable thing, bound up in the mystery of 5000+ years of culture, that you can only understand if you are Han Chinese, as they are above the rest of us humans.

Re: An update on YC China

#308

Post by CalRobert »

ClemFandango wrote: post #222
realusername wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain. Because that's pushing the line further and further of what the CCP can make people accept.

Business won't be the one to push the change on this attitude. It has to be people, or at best government. Most companies are morally agnostic, they only follow the money, you can judge them for it either way, but it's the truth.

In a sense, yes, but someone, somewhere had to be the one to say "we could be courageous, but let's softpedal this and come up with a lame excuse". They also (perhaps with others) had to build a culture where people know they can't speak up on it.

Of course, there's a question of causality. Are businesses "morally agnostic" because they choose to be, or because the ones that aren't don't survive? Companies that say "we don't do business with places that harvest organs from prisoners" will struggle against ones that say "we were able to cut the price of our phone 50% by doing business with (said regime)"

This would actually be a good reason to impose import duties on those places - to make goods from ethical regimes more competitive.

Re: An update on YC China

#309

Post by Cthulhu_ »

icelancer wrote: post #288
AJ007 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to dig up one of my old comments about YC China, because I specifically recall this one. I think the issue isn't one elephant in the room, it is elephants. My comment from August 15, 2018: "I would like to see a statement that YC China will not discriminate based on ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation and more importantly will not support startups which create technology which make doing so easie…

The idea that this kind of equality is going to be a thing in China is putting the cart about 200 miles ahead of the horse.

Gotta start somewhere. There wouldn't be as strong a push for equality in the workspace nowadays if it wasn't for (amongst others) YC backed companies pushing for it.

Re: An update on YC China

#310

Post by puszczyk »

undefined3840 wrote: post #282
bg4 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain. I know right? I mean, it's not my liver that's being harvested...

You act like that doesn’t happen here...I just read a story in the LA times on how organs are being harvested from the recently deceased before a proper investigation can take place

Your comment is an instance of whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Coming from Poland some of the the post-war socialism Whataboutism is a meme here (check the polish variant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes#V... )

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