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Google to close engineering office in Russia

reuters.com

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Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#61

Post by happyscrappy »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #53

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA. Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture. Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly. If anyone speaks about…

It is easy to criticize the US but the entire West is working together. Is Assange or Snowden safe in Germany or Norway? The longer Europeans pretend that the problem is only the US the easier it is to have business as usual.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#62

Post by osipov »

danmaz74 wrote: post #28

Putin is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to his power, whatever the consequences to the Russian economy, and this of course scares foreign companies who work there - even if, with the recent fall of the ruble, Russian talent is even more affordable now. I'm afraid (I have friends in Russia) that we're going to see more of this.

That's a very myopic view and here's why -- virtually all governments in the world are becoming increasingly authoritarian because of the global economic crisis and the civilian unrest that it provokes. For example, replace Putin in your sentence and you'll get "United States is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to it power". You can support that statement with facts about police in Ferguson, US conflicts with China in Asia Pacific, and of course US crackdown on dissidents like Assange and Snowden. You can also try that exercise by replacing Putin with "Greek government".

Demonizing Putin is what your government wants you to do to avoid seeing the bigger picture. The real question is WHY is Putin cracking down on threat to his power?

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#63

Post by icantthinkofone »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #53

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA. Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture. Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly. If anyone speaks about…

Yeah they would never do that in Russia or China.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#64

Post by DangerousPie »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #53

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA. Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture. Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly. If anyone speaks about…

> With the exception of the possibility that a couple of them have been assassinated

That's pretty much the point though, isn't it? Of course the US is going to prosecute someone who reveals their state secrets on such a massive scale. Every country would. However, what they don't do is routinely assassinate and imprison political opponents.

In the same way, I agree with you that the cooperation between internet companies and the NSA/CIA is very concerning. However, I believe this still pales in comparison to the amount of oppression and state-control over the media that you see in Russia.

What the US is doing is definitely not right. But I don't believe we should let our disappointment about that trivialize the totalitarian state that is Putin's Russia.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#65

Post by tribaal »

raverbashing wrote: post #49
tribaal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's been on position 1 of best standard of living in the world pretty consistently, and Switzerland is geographically central, well interconnected, business-friendly, and not part of the EU? Just a guess :) EDIT: It seems Vienna is on top since 2010, my bad. But position 2 is not so bad, and the other points still stand :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Surve...

It's also extremely expensive ;) But yeah, I know the city, and I agree with most of it. Also, yeah, not part of the EU (but in practice it's more of a "pick what you want" thing with the EU

Sure it's expensive, but if you live there your salary is indexed to that cost (especially if you work for google), so it's not like it's a problem in practice.

Of course, if you're just visiting... ouch :)

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#66

Post by anovikov »

tobltobs wrote: post #47
anovikov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is indeed is bad and going worse. Free people of the world, including Russians, must do everything for this to stop, and Russian/commuinist/orthodox 'world' to be destroyed as quickly and cleanly as possible. History shows this is possible: collapse of USSR already did most of this job, what remains is easier and there is a good chance Russian threat will be over forever in a generation if we (i mean Russians,…

The russion threat is a threat to the world, because starting a war is a popular option with those failing dictators.

Not much, there isn't much Putin could do in the military sense without completely crippling the economy. All he can in foreign affairs is bullying small neighbors. Soviet Union was up to 7-8% of the world GDP and had Soviet Bloc - allies that (not counting China - it was never a Soviet ally really) combined had almost as much. Currently Russia has no allies - not even Belarus - nobody recognized Crimea annexation for example. A few weak post-soviet states could make pro-Russian statements once a while in exchange for another shipment of cheap natural gas, but that's about it. And it is currently less than 3% of the world's GDP.

It should be too obvious even for Putin that an attempt of a new Cold War will be laughable. So he won't start another war or seriously threaten West. Victims of his policies will be, in their overwhelming majority, Russian people.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#67

Post by malthaus »

dagw wrote: post #42
raverbashing wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why is Zurich a big part of Google's strategy as opposed to other places in Europe

Simpler tax laws and more employer friendly labor laws would be a guess. Perhaps it's also easier for Google to get residency permits for its workers in Switzerland.

Getting (especially non-EU) foreigners to work here is actually a huge problem, increasing in future with upcoming changes to immigration law.

A good thing of Google betting on Switzerland might be some increased lobbying around that topic as it's all a bit of a mess currently.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#68

Post by tribaal »

lentil_soup wrote: post #52
tribaal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's been on position 1 of best standard of living in the world pretty consistently, and Switzerland is geographically central, well interconnected, business-friendly, and not part of the EU? Just a guess :) EDIT: It seems Vienna is on top since 2010, my bad. But position 2 is not so bad, and the other points still stand :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Surve...

Those surveys are incredibly subjective and will vary person to person. There's not such thing as a "best" city for standard of living. When comparing cities I think it's best to use hard data and then compare them based on what's important to you personally. I usually use http://www.numbeo.com as a starting point for this.

Oh look! The site you linked to agrees with the study I linked to! Amazing!

http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/city_result.jsp?countr...

(see that gauge? It's all the way to green!)

EDIT: and here is their ranking. It's only number 4... http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings.jsp

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#69

Post by muglug »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #53

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA. Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture. Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly. If anyone speaks about…

Espionage (what the US programs were for) is very different than the widespread victimisation of those who are seen as undesirable.

The Russian government is actively conspiring to silence hundreds of thousands of people. Whether it's because they were unfortunate enough to have been born gay, or because they want to talk about Russia's annexation of eastern Ukraine, or whether they just don't think Putin should be in power forever.

Call me crazy, but I think that's worse than passive collection of reams of data.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#70

Post by happyscrappy »

osipov wrote: post #62
danmaz74 wrote: post #28

Putin is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to his power, whatever the consequences to the Russian economy, and this of course scares foreign companies who work there - even if, with the recent fall of the ruble, Russian talent is even more affordable now. I'm afraid (I have friends in Russia) that we're going to see more of this.

That's a very myopic view and here's why -- virtually all governments in the world are becoming increasingly authoritarian because of the global economic crisis and the civilian unrest that it provokes. For example, replace Putin in your sentence and you'll get "United States is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to it power". You can support that statement with facts about police in…

Russia is only a threat to its own citizens and border countries who are not members of NATO. The West was bringing Russia closer, now that trust is gone and will take a long time to repair.
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