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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

#171

Post by rwallace »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #155
curiously wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Putin can keep this up with the falling currency and economy crashing? Or does he have a stronghold on everyone with guns that nobody could take him down? I wonder if Russia could change to a more democratic and liberal tone after Putin. I mean, it seems like Putin wants to go back straight to Soviet era.

My Russian friends on Facebook love Putin. Why would they overthrow him? He's given them everything they wanted: revenge on West for the cold war, bullying neighbors, a toughguy image, punishing homosexuals, and up until recently a higher oil price (coincidental of course). Sorry I just don't believe that the Russian people are interested in peace or human rights. Putin reflects the will of majority. I think Russia's…

Isolation and sanctions would be acts of insane stupidity at this point. Take a dodgy regime and cut them off from the international community, mess up their economy, give everyone in the country a reason to believe the world really is out to get them, and it should be no surprise when the inevitable happens: popular opinion in the country becomes increasingly paranoid, support for the dodgy regime is solidified, and the regime itself becomes more extremist and totalitarian over time. It's the perfect way to make a bad situation worse.

This might be excusable if the situation were unprecedented, but the worst part is, the pattern is not news to us at all. Cuba, North Korea, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran: how many times does history have to repeat the lesson before we become willing to learn it?

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#172

Post by danmaz74 »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #155
curiously wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Putin can keep this up with the falling currency and economy crashing? Or does he have a stronghold on everyone with guns that nobody could take him down? I wonder if Russia could change to a more democratic and liberal tone after Putin. I mean, it seems like Putin wants to go back straight to Soviet era.

My Russian friends on Facebook love Putin. Why would they overthrow him? He's given them everything they wanted: revenge on West for the cold war, bullying neighbors, a toughguy image, punishing homosexuals, and up until recently a higher oil price (coincidental of course). Sorry I just don't believe that the Russian people are interested in peace or human rights. Putin reflects the will of majority. I think Russia's…

Maybe you didn't consider that those who have success in business in Russia are largely those who live well in a corrupt system and have a strong relationship with Putin's power. That doesn't represent the average Russian.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#173

Post by johnsea »

raquo wrote: post #147
riffraff wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which I have to think will be well received. sorry I can't read the english here, do you expect it to be well received (why? seems like it would be a though choice for many people even with a relocation package) or are you expressing hope it will be?

Disregarding the job/compensation aspects, I'm sure many Russian Googlers would love a chance to live in a real functioning country, even if temporarily.

They'll soon find out that Zürich has become a quite boring overpopulated (in comparision to the finit 'nice hidden corners') place...

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#174

Post by bad_user »

osipov wrote: post #141
bad_user wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Romanian, a country that's pretty close to Russia and I am one that suffers for what the Ukrainians are going through with Russia, because I can see how the same thing could happen in Basarabia (Moldova) and there are already signs of that. Russia historically has been occupying territories, getting rid of any political dissent by effectively killing or deporting people, while crushing their national identity.…

>>So spare me rhetoric about every government or country being the same. Don't twist my words. I said governments are becoming more authoritarian. I stand by this statement.

Judging by your other comments, your intent is pretty clear but I'll bite.

I strongly disagree that governments are becoming more authoritarian, it's quite the opposite, governments are becoming more liberal and democratic, with the situation improving even in countries such as Libya, Egypt and Morocco. The only reason for why the situation seems bleak to some people is because access to information has become unhindered due to the Internet.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#175

Post by muglug »

debacle wrote: post #106
melling wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you be more explicit and provide some examples.

"Freedom zones," trying to get MLK to commit suicide, the Red Scare, subversion of activist groups during the Nixon years, Kent State, manipulation of social networks and Wikipedia, controlling the media to the point that it might as well be called the state media unless you're watching BBC or Comedy Central. I could go on and on. The Russians are not worse than the US, they're just not as good at hiding it.

The US government does not "control" the media, and allows private news organisations (Fox News, The Wall St Journal) that effectively act as a mouthpiece for the opposition party to flourish. Not so in Russia, where independent news organisations are under constant attack.

You're absolutely right that the US has done some deplorable things in its past (including, as we now know, the recent state-sanctioned torture of probably innocent foreigners). That doesn't make what Russia's doing today, in fairly plain sight, any less repugnant.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#176

Post by notjackma »

Yizahi wrote: post #119
osipov wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>No-one is demonizing Putin, they're telling facts. Really? Much in the same way that the media of 10 years ago convinced the populace that Hussein was involved with 9/11, the media today is propagating the following memes: - Putin hates gays - Putin kills journalists - Putin was responsible for downing of MH17 How many of these memes are supported by facts? When accusing a leader of a nuclear power of these things,…

Putin has started Russia-Ukraine war in February and Russian troops has downed MH17 using Russian AA complex. So he is responsible obviously. Putin regime has killed several journalists. The gay thing is not so clear, he may be gay himself.

Wow, you must know something the rest of the world doesn't.

If you have evidence that Russian troops shot down flight MH-17 then you should present it to the Dutch parliament and the United Nations.

Otherwise, like the rest of us, you should wait for investigators to finish their work.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#177

Post by colinbartlett »

notjackma wrote: post #163
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine doing business with a Russian owned company at this point. An autocratic regime has never been good for internet or software freedoms. I'm very glad I chose Sophos over Kaspersky for our shop.

Why discriminate against a Russian company over something that may or may not happen? Russia has elections and they have laws which affect businesses based there - pretty much like every other country out there. As the article states, Google is moving its engineers but the sales team is staying, so this reorganization is less to do with politics and more to do with Google centralizing its engineers in Zurich - just l…

And why choose Zurich over Moscow as the place to center its engineers? Maybe because the business climate is not as conducive and that's very much because of the political situation in Russia.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#178

Post by rwallace »

happyscrappy wrote: post #70
osipov wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's actually going on here is people are committing the classic mistake of assuming if one side of a quarrel is in the wrong, the other must be in the right.

As far as I'm concerned, while we could bicker about whether Russia or the West has been more insanely stupid in its part in the escalating spiral of provocation in recent years, it would be quibbling over details.

The point that matters is that all of the governments in question are behaving like fools, and need to be brought under control or replaced with saner minds before the same pattern of stupidity that we saw a hundred years ago leads to the same results - and this time around, both sides have nuclear weapons.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#179

Post by sologoub »

bad_user wrote: post #133
osipov wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm a Romanian, a country that's pretty close to Russia and I am one that suffers for what the Ukrainians are going through with Russia, because I can see how the same thing could happen in Basarabia (Moldova) and there are already signs of that. Russia historically has been occupying territories, getting rid of any political dissent by effectively killing or deporting people, while crushing their national identity.…

The politics and history there is much more complicated!

I strongly believe that any country put in a position of power will expand the control by any means necessary. Your own history is far from flawless: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941_Odessa_massacre.

That said, I strongly doubt Russia has any interest in Moldova or Romania. Putin lost a figurehead in Yanukovich and grabbed what he could out of the ensuing mess. Putin did not start what happened in Ukraine, but rather was extremely opportunistic once it happened.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#180

Post by walshemj »

raquo wrote: post #156
duaneb wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, it seems like Putin wants to go back straight to Soviet era. There were many different soviet eras, each with their own problems and strengths. Putin's doing his own thing. Just because he's becoming more authoritarian doesn't mean he's becoming Soviet.

He controls all law enforcement and mass media, restricts freedom of speech, prosecutes political competition, enables corruption and connections-with-benefits, and has everyone eat this crap because patriotism. I struggle to recall a soviet era without these traits.

And he's an chekist
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