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Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

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Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#301

Post by jjcon »

sneak wrote: post #276
scottcodie wrote: post #159

Apple works with the US government too. Apple operates in China so it'd be prudent to work with the government for mutual benefit. I'm not sure I see why this is being framed as a bad thing.

Anything "China" or "Russia" in the USA has negative connotations, even when it is the exact same shit the US government does domestically. China, Russia, and the USA all work much the same way.

As a German you of all people should understand the havok unchecked authoritarian regimes can have on people and the world. The USA may not be a perfect democracy/republic and it has certainly been through tough times as of late but it is foolish to resort to such false equivalence.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#303

Post by trasz »

onepointsixC wrote: post #201
trasz wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Birth rates always drop when the quality of life improves. Sure. They do not drop 60% in only a few years, only amongst a single ethnic group in a single region. The numerous testimonies, plus recently leaked documents confirming this is an explicit CCP policy removes any doubt.

That's true. However, it seems in China some things just happen much more quickly than anywhere else. This happens with building new nuclear power plants (or building anything, really), and I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it also happened to things like sex education, especially given Chinese lack of tolerance towards religious extremism and the reproduction rights hurdles it brings, even in nominally civilised countries like the US. Another thing about those official Chinese statistics is... well, personally I'd take them with a grain of salt. China is still far behind the West when it comes to transparency.

The testimonies are a strong argument, however we're in the middle of information war against China. There is also the argument of the amount of those testimonies: there are surprisingly few of them, given millions of people armed with smartphones who live there.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#304

Post by emsy »

tonyhb wrote: post #149
topicseed wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps is blocked in China, I think.

So, as much as people like to throw shade at Google, we can say that they haven't caved on this. That's a plus for them.

Google also has an entirely different business model than Apple. You could say they would be in direct competition to the CCP so I don't think this is a reason to hold Google up for their "principles".

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#305

Post by seniorivn »

int_19h wrote: post #283
whatshisface wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument would be more appropriate if OSM was about something other than where the streets went.

USSR/Russia also had a very long history of restrictions on accurate maps (of just about anything!), on the basis that it is a national security threat if the country ever gets invaded. Street-level maps were broadly available but deliberately falsified: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/03/world/soviet-aide-admits-... Detailed ( A detailed article on this explaining how and why they went about it: http://www.hundzor.o…

funnily enough correct and detailed maps of ussr were available in nato countries

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#306

Post by borski »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #223
ntSean wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that they didn’t cave, Google products are unavailable due to sanctions. Google Search for example was heavily modified for the Chinese market.

Aren't they unavailable because they specifically didn't cave though?

No. They’re unavailable because they refused to go back into the market after China got caught using espionage. Were it not for that, it’s very possible Google would have caved; we don’t know how that would have fallen. It’s convenient they didn’t have to answer that, but not because they didn’t cave.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#307

Post by smithza »

Eelongate wrote: post #218
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing out someone else's hypocrisy isn't an inconsistency. If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable and then proceeds to do business with a military, they're a hypocrite. That's still true even if the person telling you this does business with a military.

> "If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable" Thiel hasn't even done that. His position seems to be that American companies should work with the US Military, but shouldn't work with the Chinese military. Such a position is certainly partisan, but it isn't hypocritical.

> Such a position is certainly partisan

Try patriotic, or more cynically nationalistic.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#308

Post by hereforphone »

gonehome wrote: post #260
hereforphone wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a secret to share. Apple and others may virtual signal but at the end of the day it's all about profits. If you believed otherwise you were mislead. "Think Different" is just a commercial slogan.

Corporations are made up of people and people can make decisions despite incentives to behave otherwise. I’d argue Zuckerberg did this in his Georgetown speech [0]. Recently the head of the woman’s tennis association did too when pulling out of China. Palantir is also principled about this (read their S1) - though incentives are more aligned there. Add in the South Park writers too. It is possible to do the right thi…

Easy to do when A - You have the "right" opinions (they aren't politically incorrect or unpopular among your target customer demographic), and/or B - You are insanely rich.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#309

Post by ksec »

qeternity wrote: post #73
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #50

Daring Fireball [1] has another passage from the article which is illuminating with regards to any promises Apple makes about how it will resist governmental pressure to compromise its products, vis-à-vis Apple's CSAM scanning tool. "Sometime in 2014 or early 2015, China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping told members of the Apple Maps team to make the Diaoyu Islands, the objects of a long-running territorial di…

I totally get that people want companies to act with dignity, but the idea that a company, even one as large as Apple, is going to make any sort of difference with respect to China's oddities is wishful thinking. Apple has a business to run. They abide by all sorts of requests in various countries in which they operate. Of course there has to be a line somewhere, I'm just not sure this is it.

I dont have a problem with your narrative. Actually I agree with your narrative. Every companies has business to run.

I just have a problem with Apple suggesting they are doing "good" with X, promising "good" with Y, with a big smile on its face in marketing, pumping up PR to the maximum. But every time you scrutinize the details they just dont hold up.

BTW people may want to look at Samsung's market share in China. Hint: it is a single digit number.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#310

Post by Eelongate »

smithza wrote: post #307
Eelongate wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable" Thiel hasn't even done that. His position seems to be that American companies should work with the US Military, but shouldn't work with the Chinese military. Such a position is certainly partisan, but it isn't hypocritical.

> Such a position is certainly partisan Try patriotic, or more cynically nationalistic.

Partisan fits. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/partisan

1. An adherent to a party or faction. 2. A fervent, sometimes militant, supporter or proponent of a party, cause, faction, person, or idea.

Maybe that word isn't judgemental enough for you, but it fits and I used it carefully.

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