Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer • Hacker News Board

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#161

Post by parasubvert » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:18 PM UTC

aeze wrote: post #152

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to note -- it's not really troubling for a country to have a lot of influence. It's troubling for China to have as much influence as it does when it's directly trying to undermine freedoms that we have fought tooth and nail and died a million lives to get in The West. This is not a question of a foreign country being different. This is a question of a foreign company forcing us to slowly give up the very th…

> The fact that companies are willing to do it is pathetic. I don't disagree with your post at all, but I wanted to note that it's important to remember that companies aren't people, they're machines generally designed to maximize profit. Morals don't apply to them - only the law, and money does. Personally I've boycotted Blizzard in response, and I hope more people do.

This is false. Companies are made of people. They're not machines, they're organizations of people. There is no "business ethics" there's just ethics. People in leadership positions can take actions that aren't always in the interest of short term profit maximization, and will not get fired for it, so long as these actions are vaguely aligned to the long term health of the organization.

One might suggest that encouraging freedom / democracy is in the long run health of all for-profit companies. I haven't seen any boards or shareholder activists argue against this yet.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#162

Post by prepend » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:18 PM UTC

mrosett wrote: post #120

undefined3840 wrote: post #10

By far the most egregious example of western firms working with China are management consulting companies like McKinsey that work directly with governments on expensive contracts, including of course China. I mean, in those cases they are often writing the playbook for the government when it comes to implementing certain policies. Crazy that is even legal for a western firm.

That's a really good point and not one I had considered in the context of everything that's happened recently. McKinsey has been involved with a lot of bad stuff internationally over the last decade or two. Monitor's work with Gaddafi was also really gross. There's an odd dichotomy though - the ex-McKinsey employees I know personally and work closely with are all very thoughtful, ethical people.

Monitor was bought by Deloitte.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#163

Post by cwkoss » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:20 PM UTC

Somewhat tangential: Is there a website that tracks companies which do not have Chinese investors and does not use Chinese manufacturing in their supply chain?

I'd like to try to avoid giving money to China, but they are so ingrained into the American economy I'm not sure how to do this in practice.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#164

Post by celticmusic » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #134

jrockway wrote: post #14

The Internet's reaction to this has warmed my heart a little. Overwatch and Hearthstone are among my favorite computer games. I've certainly played more Overwatch than any other game. I have made real-world and online friends in Overwatch. I met my girlfriend in Overwatch. It made me sad to have to throw all that away yesterday. But the conversations we're having as a result of this is great. The mainstream media is…

One thing to note -- it's not really troubling for a country to have a lot of influence. It's troubling for China to have as much influence as it does when it's directly trying to undermine freedoms that we have fought tooth and nail and died a million lives to get in The West. This is not a question of a foreign country being different. This is a question of a foreign company forcing us to slowly give up the very th…

> It's troubling for China to have as much influence as it does when it's directly trying to undermine freedoms that we have fought tooth and nail and died a million lives to get in The West.

WE have thrown it away already, China is just trying to speed things up.

I've thought quite a bit about this, and my conclusion is that everything is cyclical and has a rise and fall because it only takes a few generations to unlearn hard-fought lessons. Only this time around technology is going to enable a level of control that has never been achieved before. I can only hope that technology will also allow the escape of that same level of control.

A perfect example is how larger and larger swathes of the populace is ok hampering free speech in the name of empathy. They don't fully understand the implications, and there will be generations that will be forced to relearn those lessons, and it won't be a cheap lesson.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#165

Post by dang1234throw » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #20

This is probably not going to be a popular opinion here, but I wonder if any folks have considered what it looks like on the China side? Specifically, you are in China, and the HK protestors want what to happen to China? You have HK protesters waving American and British flags. These are the countries that have started wars all over, in the last 70 years since the end of WWII, ostensibly to promote democracy, and eve…

I'm Chinese and can say some words explaining the perspective from where I sit. I don't think memory of historical wrongs lie at the root of Chinese reactions. They may be the reasons most commonly given, but I don't think it's psychologically operative for most Chinese people. (This as following partly from introspective observation as a Chinese, and partly from the general principle against giving much credence to reasons given in explaining one's own actions and attitudes.) I think what lies at the root of Chinese reactions is simply the perception that the all the noble moral condemnations from the West do not feel genuine at all, that they do not feel like they come from the noble place they purport to. There are so many alternative explanations of what really lies behind these moral condemnations (e.g. that they really come from a place of self-interest (the Plaza Accord theories are very popoular here), from bias and hostility, from a malevelant intention to do harm, or simply from the desire to find someone to blame) and --- I hope this is something even an American can agree with --- the West has done very very little, nothing even, by way of ruling out those explanations for China. It simply repeats the moral condemnations. It's hard not to see this as showing either gross arrogance (I don't need to prove anything to you) or that one of those explanations really is true.

We can all agree that if someone criticizes us morally we should examine our behavior, so we can do better. However, what if you have reasonable suspicion that ulterior motives lie behind the critic's "criticism", that the critic is doing this only because he stands to profit from it somehow at your expenses, and that the critic doesn't really believe in the noble ideals he purport to believe in? Are you to give in to such a person so that he can get what he wants?

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#166

Post by wpdev_63 » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #14

The Internet's reaction to this has warmed my heart a little. Overwatch and Hearthstone are among my favorite computer games. I've certainly played more Overwatch than any other game. I have made real-world and online friends in Overwatch. I met my girlfriend in Overwatch. It made me sad to have to throw all that away yesterday. But the conversations we're having as a result of this is great. The mainstream media is…

You should pickup TF2. It has tighter gun mechanics and doesn't have the ultimate garbage(imo).

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#167

Post by bduerst » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

panpanna wrote: post #141

bduerst wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Trade war affects you the least (and your competition the most) if you're not even in the country.

Take Android for example: there are multiple competing app stores in China, many very shady by our standards. This has also created a market for very cheap uncertified Android phones+ accompanying malware.

Android is open source so of course the lowest tier phone OEMs are going to fork/use it. I was in Shanghai a while and could buy counterfeit iphones too despite Apple being there.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#168

Post by tomnipotent » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

oarsinsync wrote: post #33

tomnipotent wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without considering Tencent's influence At 5% ownership, Tencent doesn't have the muscle to force Blizzard to do anything it wouldn't have already done of its own volition.

Activist investors often have less than 10% stakes in the companies they’re trying to institute changes in. 5% is not a meaningless amount to hold.

I hadn't thought about the parallel to activist investors, that's a very good point. I've seen the hell raised by folks like Carl Icahn...

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#169

Post by cwkoss » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:24 PM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #156

Boycotting Blizzard is easy and achieves almost nothing. Boycotting Chinese products on the other hand...

Is there a website that helps consumers identify brands that do not have Chinese investors and don't use Chinese manufacturing in their supply chain?

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#170

Post by prepend » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 10:24 PM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #156

Boycotting Blizzard is easy and achieves almost nothing. Boycotting Chinese products on the other hand...

Blizzard survives on monthly recurring revenue streams. Boycotting disrupts this stream in a very consistent manner. 1M boycotters mean $10M lost per month plus all the addition revenue from lost streamers and watchers. Blizzard made $1.4B last quarter [0]. It doesn’t bankrupt them but losing 2.5% of earnings sucks.

[0] https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-d...