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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

#251

Post by unprepare »

osipov wrote: post #247
unprepare wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm a couple 5 year old youtube videos, not very convincing lets dig deeper joined twitter in 2009 but his first tweet was this january, 2 tweets ever - oh and the tweet was this article, apparently the only this thing "journalist" has ever written(and its not even journalism? its a whitepaper) diversity spectrum eh? lets check them out nothing but their own website comes up on a web search (diversityspectrum.org), b…

>an incredible media talent your assessment, not his. where is your footprint on the internet?

haha very solid counterpoint.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#252

Post by guard-of-terra »

notjackma wrote: post #236
dchichkov wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be wrong, but I think in the context of discussing Russia it is pretty standard to use the word Europe, assuming 'Europe, excluding Russia/USSR'. Specifically I was talking about a typical flight to a EU country for business/tourism.

It's interesting to note that that the Eurovision song contest includes Russia, Israel and central Asian states, including even Azerbaijan. Perhaps this is an example of soft power projection from the EU "project" of a political union and the creation of a supra-national state...

Azerbaijan is not in Central Asia, it's on Caucasus.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#253

Post by unprepare »

osipov wrote: post #243
unprepare wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the law block speaking to kids about ALL sexual orientations, or just 'non traditional'? you're point is completely irrelevant to the discussion. this is about discrimination against homosexuality. But I'll address it anyways: >I don't want my kids to be exposed to any form of expression supporting any sexual lifestyle. Good for you, luckily as a parent you have the ability to make those decisions for your kids.…

Choose your words carefully, the law blocks _propaganda_ not speaking; of _"sexual relations"_ not sexual orientations. Translated from Russian to English, "sexual relations" refers to non traditional parental units, i.e. those that do not consist of a male + female. You may see here a discrimination against homosexuality but I see a legal framework for protection of a traditional family. LGBT individuals still have…

>or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships in presence of minors.

Is it me, or is that the word 'say'?

>You may see here a discrimination against homosexuality but I see a legal framework for protection of a traditional family.

This is a direct contradiction. You cannot use law to legally protect one class of people without necessarily discriminating against those not in that class.

> There are minorities that want pedophilia to be made legal.

Weak example. Pedophilia has a direct victim (a child is unable to give consent)

>Do you have a novel solution for the minority rights conflict?

No, but it wouldnt be to ignore it as you would. This is so far from what the discussion is about I wonder why you are trying to sidetrack this

>Traditionally rights for minorities have been won through struggle, societal change, and war among many other ways. Are you proposing a novel solution for LGBT rights in Russia?

? this is pretty much nonsense? yeah, rights are won through societal change as you say - Many societies are changing to accept homosexuality, not sure what you're trying to get at here? Why would i be proposing a novel solution to gay rights?

Thanks for the discussion

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#254

Post by organsnyder »

yuncun wrote: post #223
notjackma wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder of Huawei was in the PLA, and this is often used to bash the company. Why is it ok to serve country A, B, C and then go into business... but if you serve country X,Y,Z you're suddenly untrustworthy? What next? Make business decisions based upon the sexual preferences of the CEO?

McDonald’s CEO, James Skinner, is interesting. I like their chicken mcNuggets, but I am always aware that their CEO is US-Navy trained, and maintains a good relation with armed forces. Seriously though, everybody was China is PLA - it doesn't mean anything. Back in the day, PLA is one of the few ways to get an education and not be a farmer.

Thanks for the heads-up about McDonald's. We're using their McIDS product right now, so I'll definitely have to do more research into whether we can trust them.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#255

Post by JoeAltmaier »

osipov wrote: post #243
unprepare wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the law block speaking to kids about ALL sexual orientations, or just 'non traditional'? you're point is completely irrelevant to the discussion. this is about discrimination against homosexuality. But I'll address it anyways: >I don't want my kids to be exposed to any form of expression supporting any sexual lifestyle. Good for you, luckily as a parent you have the ability to make those decisions for your kids.…

Choose your words carefully, the law blocks _propaganda_ not speaking; of _"sexual relations"_ not sexual orientations. Translated from Russian to English, "sexual relations" refers to non traditional parental units, i.e. those that do not consist of a male + female. You may see here a discrimination against homosexuality but I see a legal framework for protection of a traditional family. LGBT individuals still have…

In free countries, minorities have right without struggle. We all are owed due process, free assembly and so on. This so-called conflict is made-up, where the majority imagines they are harmed by the private arrangements of the minority.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#256

Post by trhway »

notjackma wrote: post #231
a_c_s wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has neither free speech nor free elections. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25299116 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/nov/30/russia.politics

China has none of the above and is now the world's largest economy. Doesn't seem to be an impediment to doing business, does it? http://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-official-america-is-now...

>China has none of the above and is now the world's largest economy. Doesn't seem to be an impediment to doing business, does it?

sounds like you've never did business in countries like China or Russia, or did business at all.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#257

Post by minimax »

jazzyk wrote: post #241
minimax wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were an Eastern European person who made it into West Berlin with thousands of secret Soviet intelligence documents in the 1960s, then you probably were a spy.

Some were, some were not (I grew up there). Also, while some spies are money-motivated, most spies from Eastern Europe were simply fed-up with the system. We will never know for sure, but did you watch "Citizen4"? A closer look at Snowden - IMO, it's highly unlikely that he was a spy. It is clear (to me, at least) that he is highly principled, not money-driven. He'd have to be an extremely good actor.

Snowden's principles are exactly what make him such a great Russian agent. They don't have to sell him on the ideology since he already has it. It's like Aikido. All they have to do is take the momentum of his enormous ego and sense of self righteousness, and just sort of redirect it a little bit. Now all of a sudden Snowden finds himself sitting in Moscow being debriefed by Russian intelligence. It's brilliant on the part of the Russians and terrible for NATO.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#258

Post by dreamweapon »

osipov wrote: post #206
unprepare wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting, an article written by an author who has never written anything else and comes up with not a single social media profile, or really anything other than this article and articles referencing it. perfect shill bait.

Are you serious? This is Brian. I've met him: https://www.youtube.com/user/DiversitySpectrum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTS4ZASCo_0&list=UUsd-fzq2Mj... Brian is gay btw.

Brian is gay btw.

That's interesting, but it doesn't help to support what he's saying one way or another. In the West, plenty of LGBTs either openly supported, or attempted to minimize the harmful impact of their government's (or their church's) anti-gay policies -- right up until the very end, when public opinion (and if you will, history) eventually turned against them.

So Brian's defense of the status quo in the RF is not much different.

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#259

Post by notahacker »

commentzorro wrote: post #149
osipov wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not parsing the text correctly. It is legal to "hold any gay pride events, speak in favor of gay rights, or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships" It is illegal "illegal to hold any gay pride events, speak in favor of gay rights, or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships _in presence of minors_."

Interesting. So how does this play out as a means of controlling moral values in Russia? Can I effectively break up any pro gay rights events just by bringing along enough children? Or does incidental inclusion of minors not count enough to stop an already planned event?

To be honest, gay rights events in Russia are usually broken up by far-Right mobs physically attacking anyone participating. It's fair to say the police aren't renowned for making concerted efforts to ensure things go peacefully, but they're generally not the ones dishing out the beatings either.

The law in question is pandering to the extreme levels of homophobia prevalent in modern Russian culture, and its justification and theme is loosely based on an actually much more explicitly anti-gay law that existed on the UK statute book not so long ago; our current PM opposed its repeal in 2003 and yet ended up backing gay marriage a decade later. Legislators sometime reflect popular sentiment more as they shape it.

Which doesn't mean it isn't a terrible law, and much more likely to be used to persecute people in Russia than the UK (or indeed Singapore where homosexuality is technically illegal). But some perspective is useful here. From the waves of condemnation emitted from certain sources earlier this year you'd never guess that last Olympic venue where homosexual activity was actually illegal was Atlanta in 1996.

I'd appreciate the campaign to support Russian gay rights much more if I believed much of the media behind it wasn't - for better or worse - really far more interested in Russia's foreign policy. Or that it wouldn't backfire...

Re: Google to close engineering office in Russia

#260

Post by trhway »

danmaz74 wrote: post #234
trhway wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not "Russia" that is evil. It's Putin's regime that is increasingly evil. with 82% (after significant drop recently!) approval rating :)

Yes but what does that 82% actually know? When there is no freedom of the press, when the government controls practically all news outlets, it's difficult to judge what people think. This even without considering that those Russians who think Putin is evil will think twice before telling so to a random pollster.

>Yes but what does that 82% actually know? When there is no freedom of the press, when the government controls practically all news outlets, it's difficult to judge what people think.

they know what they want to know. Your argument was valid in Iron Curtain times. As of today most of the Russians have been to foreign countries and have the Internet access (my family back there (not a in central city) has fiber with connection qualities orders of magnitude better than my DSL in Silicon Valley) There is no "Grate Wall" like in China. There is though Great Wall in their minds. Because it is convenient, and otherwise they would need to accept the true reality of their existence and who they really are.

>This even without considering that those Russians who think Putin is evil will think twice before telling so to a random pollster.

such a lame excuse. It isn't about pollsters. It is about Russian people overwhelmingly supporting the policies of Putin, just look at that hysteria of "Crimea is ours".

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