if Russians are OK with current regime, why corps should fight for them
Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
501–510 of 673 posts
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
> as this very story demonstrates. This story is sufficient to demonstrate that Russia is a "sham democracy"? Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrate" anything about the US?
> This story is sufficient to demonstrate that Russia is a "sham democracy"? It's just another example among many. Russia is a sham democracy because the government takes action to prevent opposition politicians from gaining power. > Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrat…
> Actually, if those organizations had to run the NY Post story, the US would be closer to a sham than it is.
Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me.
I'd rather have this power in the hands of publicly-sanctioned, rules-based agents than arbitrary private actors who can interfere with me at any time for whatever reason they want. Philip Pettit has written quite well on this issue.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't decided if I agree with the comment you're replying to, but this isn't a fair summary of it. Either engage with it or don't but posting a caricature doesn't exactly raise the level of debate around here.
Citing "cancel culture" as the final boss doesn't start us in a place of elevation.
Good point. I glazed over that. But still...
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
Collapsing economies simply make autocrats double down even harder on autocracy. North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Zimbabwe. There are numerous examples of this. It simply multiplies the misery.
Why is this even relevant? You always have to keep heads of your enemies down. That's basic common sense. Dictatorships are the enemies of the Free World. Or, do you think they are friends, perhaps? They are your enemies, and you keep their economies ruined.
Actually that's a reasonable point, sure. My counter is that it should be proportionate. North Korea? Absolutely, they're the absolute bottom of the barrel. Full economic sanctions are reasonable, I think we both agree.
China and Russia are not like North Korea though. Citizens generally enjoy a considerable degree of freedom of movement, economic freedoms and even rights to travel abroad. To the extent that these rights are curtailed or refused we should apply increasing degrees of pressure. In fact I think we don't apply enough pressure, particularly to China. There's a lot more we could do. What we should do is emphasise that crimes such as the oppression of the Uighurs should have consequences, and we're not doing that enough right now.
I'm particularly concerned about China's application to join the Asia-Pacific trade pact, the CPTPP. The association was founded by the US in order to form a united front against China, but the US pulled out in 2017. So we now face a real possibility a trade pact intended to contain China will end up helping China contain US economic influence in the region. Nice one.
Absolute bans and boycotts are simply not appropriate though, they would disproportionately hurt ordinary Chinese, including those under the worst oppression and would help China promote a nationalistic us versus them attitude. It would also remove any ability to apply increasing pressure to any further oppressive moves because we'd have no pressure left to apply. So I fully agree with the principle, you're quit right these regimes are our enemy, but not the all-or-nothing implementation.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly Apple's Russian executives look very weak and unprepared in this video. I suspect they're just hired from some agency or consultancy as FAANG have very limited corporate presence in Russia. So they just keep being sheepish and stumbling because they have no incentive to stand their ground. Just hired guns.
Those are lawyers hired by Apple and Google, not employees.
They still looked unprepared.
The inquirer asked basic questions like "who controls App Store" or "what is the relationship between local subsidiary and Apple Inc."
They stumbled and mumbled looking lost. They looked like they didn't have clear defense line or strategy although the attack on Apple was absolutely on cards for years.
I hope I'm wrong judging by a short video but it's a bad look for Apple.
It's possible Apple is just giving in to Kremlin (or have an agreement already even) so they don't even bother or care to defend themselves.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Define "authoritarian regime" A simple rule of thumb definition (that could probably use some refinement) is regimes that are either explicitly anti-democratic or a sham democracy. Russia certainly falls into the latter category, as this very story demonstrates. In most cases, it's not that hard.
Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us?
> Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us?
I'm not a huge fan of Joe Biden (as you can probably infer from my comments here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550896), but the Hunter Biden stuff was a shameless distraction with no real substance.
So to answer your question: if the US MSM and social media was required to run smears of a sitting president against his opponent, the US would be far closer to being a sham democracy.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Define "authoritarian regime" A simple rule of thumb definition (that could probably use some refinement) is regimes that are either explicitly anti-democratic or a sham democracy. Russia certainly falls into the latter category, as this very story demonstrates. In most cases, it's not that hard.
Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us?
In our case the sham is that the MSM is independent from the political powers. It’s quite elegant really. And regardless of how transparent it is, roughly half the population will reliably believe the MSM is somehow impartial, because it tells them so.
Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This story is sufficient to demonstrate that Russia is a "sham democracy"? It's just another example among many. Russia is a sham democracy because the government takes action to prevent opposition politicians from gaining power. > Does the fact that Twitter/Facebook/et al banned the NYPost in the run-up to the 2020 election as well as preventing people from sending links to NYPost articles in their DMs "demonstrat…
> Actually, if those organizations had to run the NY Post story, the US would be closer to a sham than it is. Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me. I'd rather have this power in the hands of publicly-sanctioned, rules-based agents than arbitrary private actors who can interfere with me at any time for what…
> Hm, guess I'd like to live in a sham democracy then, as blocking me from sending certain political thoughts in my chat messages is unacceptable to me.
No one's blocking you. Go put a sign up in your front yard, just don't complain your rights are being trampled when I don't let you put up a sign in my yard.
Other people have rights too, and that includes the right not to cooperate with you.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It's worth watching Why haven't you provided a link then?
It was published on a Telegram channel: https://t.me/A000MP97/93
I just watched this video but didn't find anything about threatening jail time. It was a bunch of bickering about Apple Inc. and Apple Distribution International Limited.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the kind of moral framework that creates cancel culture. Pulling out from Russia will decrease many Russian's standard of living, but will have zero impact in stopping them from rigging elections. If everyone cuts trade for moral reasons, then there's no incentive for us not to point nukes at each other again.
Yes. Yes. Maybe. Similarly unknown. In this case we're talking about propping up the existing Russian government who actively interfere in democracy around the world, assassinate political enemies and draw immense influence from the fear it spreads around it. Yeah, sure, why wouldn't we want to keep that going as long as we can? Because it will end one day. Putin isn't Russia's greatest love machine. When that day co…
We only have a limited bandwidth for action. While I don't think that everyone should be hyper-utilitarian and focus all of our effort on distributing antimalarial medication like Bill Gates is doing, you need to have some threshold of ROI if you want a proposal to be taken seriously. For example, the US government values a human life at $10 million dollars.