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Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

theguardian.com

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Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#101

Post by francisofascii »

frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

Related, this debate is big news in Portland this week, and in the golf news world in general. These kind of questions are being asked and discussed. A few players have signed lucrative deals to play golf in a Saudi Liv Golf league, tarnishing their legacy in exchange for crazy amounts of money. Other players are rejecting the offers for moral reasons.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#102

Post by londons_explore »

frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

By not providing your services to the people of these countries, you are making their quality of life worse. See heavily sanctioned countries like North Korea and Iran for examples of quite how much worse life is for those citizens.

"I don't want to support Mohammed bin Salman" needs to be traded off against "I don't want to make 34 million people have worse lives".

In my view, in nearly every case, the latter effect outweighs the former.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#104

Post by onmobile2022 »

frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

This generalizes to whether or not you would be willing to e.g. get an Uber. This money is absolutely everywhere, is there really some moral high ground in measuring how far away you stand as you accept it? What about working for a public company with Saudi shareholders?

For me at least, the willingness to take Uber rides I know are subsidized by Saudi money is little (if at all) different from a moral perspective than working directly for a fully Saudi funded entity, although I am sure many will attempt to define a spectrum between these two that happens to align well with general conveniences

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#107

Post by starkd »

londons_explore wrote: post #102
frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

By not providing your services to the people of these countries, you are making their quality of life worse. See heavily sanctioned countries like North Korea and Iran for examples of quite how much worse life is for those citizens. "I don't want to support Mohammed bin Salman" needs to be traded off against "I don't want to make 34 million people have worse lives". In my view, in nearly every case, the latter effect…

That's the "magic" of commerce. That a transaction can bring two parties together who ordinarily would not agree on anything. And they BOTH walk away from it with a net positive.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#108

Post by NhanH »

frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

(c) Every drops of oil you use strengthen Saudi Arabia, why didn't you stop yet? and (d) If you are using Uber, WeWork or in a company being invested by Softbank, Saudi Arabia get benefits from it as well (https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/Pages/OurInvestments-Global.aspx).

> but I don't see much of a moral distinction between the two.

The key here is that you will have to elaborate how you think the two are similar. And then we can discuss whether those reasons also applied to (c) and (d), or additional (x), (y), (z) or not. This slippery slope is quite long, so we can't easily hand-wave things awaay

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#109

Post by Strom »

frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

Mohammed bin Salman is from Saudi Arabia, this article is about the United Arab Emirates, or well the Amazon-related part anyway.

Also, while we're on the topic of moral dilemmas, I would like to add some spice by pointing out that buying almost anything from the supermarket funds someone like Mohammed bin Salman, because their oil was used in the production and transportation of the product or its components.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#110

Post by Banana699 »

erellsworth wrote: post #51

There's no such thing as a woke corporation. Corporate wokeness is an illusion created by PR departments to maximize market share.

Alternatively, there is such a thing as a woke corporation, and there is such a thing as an anti gay corporation, and they might even be the same corporation at different points in space and\or time.

Wokism is a dominant religion (not demographically) in the US, therefore corporations there pray to wokism and observe its rituals. Anti gay islam is a dominant religion in the Middle East, therefore corporations there will do the same things they do to wokism elsewhere, if grudgingly.

This is quite different than what the employees of a corporation might think, which will depend on the cultural milieu they were raised in. The corporation itself, however, is an emergent non-human intelligence, and it tends to abhor non-profit-related conflicts.

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