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There is something to this argument, but it's ruined. The author and many others don't like Saudi Arabia and Russia. That's the main reason for advocating a bo

There is something to this argument, but it's ruined. The author and many others don't like Saudi Arabia and Russia. That's the main reason for advocating a boycott of their investment money, because while the author mentions the poor human rights records of those two countries as the reason, there are plenty of other countries with such records. The main example of which is China, which is of course not mentioned. The US itself has a poor human rights record on many things, and especially given our current president, had the author been writing from any other country, the US might have been on the list of countries whose money should not be accepted. I'm not saying the US is as bad as China and Russia and Saudi Arabia. I'm not even saying China is as bad as Russia and Saudi Arabia. I am saying that if you care deeply about this, you should mention more than the easiest targets, if only to avoid the appearance of bias. The bias also shows itself by considering an entire country as a single entity, when the author says we should not accept Russian investors' money. To justify it, the author says that if a Russian investor has ties to Kremlin-backed companies, they should be off limits. But that probably encompasses a large number of Russian investors. Same as the group of investors with ties to companies funded by US government money (DARPA, NSA, CIA, etc.).

psergeant 9y ago
> you should mention more than > the easiest targets, if only > to avoid the appearance of > bias You’re arguing for purity over pragmatism
- supercanuck 9y ago
  ...also whataboutism.
- Gigablah 9y ago
  For a moment I thought you were describing the article itself.
sho 9y ago
I kind of agree with you, but I think you muddy your argument by getting into the weeds somewhat. For me this whole thing is pretty simple - where do you draw your line? I mean, off the top of my head here's a rough list, in my extremely rough estimation, of human rights offenders from bad to good: badness country 100% DPRK 90% Saudi Arabia 80% Dubai 70% Russia 60% China 50% USA 40% India 30% Japan 20% Australia 10% Norway 0% Antarctica So where do you draw your line? Stating "My line is 65% bad or less" is a reasonable argument.
- manfredo 9y ago
  And how do we make countries high up on that list go down? Economic isolationism surely isn't the answer - seeing as North Korea is #1 on that list. Notice that the countries lowest on your list of badness have the closest ties to Western countries (with the exception of Antarctica). Saudi Arabia becoming more closely tied economically to Western countries is an opportunity to lessen its "badness" on your scale. Recent developments, like allowing women to drive and encouraging more women to work are still ridiculously backwards by the standards of the Western world, but represent steps in the right direction
  - pryce 9y ago
    There is a reason that countries like South Africa would be substantially less high on that list than they used to be 25 years ago, and increasing economic -and political- isolation is definitely one of the reasons it changed. We see in political science that the definition of nations is somewhat circular - for a country to meaningfully exist, its recognition of a significant number of other countries is almost an essential feature. This is the reason that projects like Sealand fail, and also why revolutions attract so much international meddling.
    - PeachPlum 9y ago
      If we extend our timelines then all of the European nations would go to the top. Late 19th century unbridled mercantilism killed millions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts
  - confounded 9y ago
    So do you think that if the US did more business with Saudi’s Arabia this would improve their human rights record?
  - sho 9y ago
    You make good points. Encouraging closer two-way ties might indeed do what you say. It certainly might make your "death to america!" chants a little less enthusiastic if half your country's pension fund was invested there. "Destroy the Great Satan! Except, uh, San Francisco!" Another factor of course is "How much is this country actively trying to undermine/is a potential enemy of my own?" which probably for most countries we'd think of as "western" puts Russia, and to a lesser extent China, at the top of the list.
anad7 9y ago
We must of-course include Israel in this list, as far as I know it is a serial human rights violator and uses technology for inciting violence and fear.
lostboys67 9y ago
Well then you just set up a system where companies that are CNI have oversight at some level of course this does mean a lot more vetting and it can be abused like France declaring a yoghurt maker was CNI.
sreenadh 9y ago
I think a better way of putting is that the founders of these startups will cringe to share a public stage or at the very mention of one of the mentioned groups but will happily take their money.

psergeant 9y ago

> you should mention more than > the easiest targets, if only > to avoid the appearance of > bias You’re arguing for purity over pragmatism

supercanuck 9y ago
...also whataboutism.
Gigablah 9y ago
For a moment I thought you were describing the article itself.

sho 9y ago

I kind of agree with you, but I think you muddy your argument by getting into the weeds somewhat. For me this whole thing is pretty simple - where do you draw your line? I mean, off the top of my head here's a rough list, in my extremely rough estimation, of human rights offenders from bad to good: badness country 100% DPRK 90% Saudi Arabia 80% Dubai 70% Russia 60% China 50% USA 40% India 30% Japan 20% Australia 10% Norway 0% Antarctica So where do you draw your line? Stating "My line is 65% bad or less" is a reasonable argument.

manfredo 9y ago
And how do we make countries high up on that list go down? Economic isolationism surely isn't the answer - seeing as North Korea is #1 on that list. Notice that the countries lowest on your list of badness have the closest ties to Western countries (with the exception of Antarctica). Saudi Arabia becoming more closely tied economically to Western countries is an opportunity to lessen its "badness" on your scale. Recent developments, like allowing women to drive and encouraging more women to work are still ridiculously backwards by the standards of the Western world, but represent steps in the right direction
- pryce 9y ago
  There is a reason that countries like South Africa would be substantially less high on that list than they used to be 25 years ago, and increasing economic -and political- isolation is definitely one of the reasons it changed. We see in political science that the definition of nations is somewhat circular - for a country to meaningfully exist, its recognition of a significant number of other countries is almost an essential feature. This is the reason that projects like Sealand fail, and also why revolutions attract so much international meddling.
  - PeachPlum 9y ago
    If we extend our timelines then all of the European nations would go to the top. Late 19th century unbridled mercantilism killed millions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts
- confounded 9y ago
  So do you think that if the US did more business with Saudi’s Arabia this would improve their human rights record?
- sho 9y ago
  You make good points. Encouraging closer two-way ties might indeed do what you say. It certainly might make your "death to america!" chants a little less enthusiastic if half your country's pension fund was invested there. "Destroy the Great Satan! Except, uh, San Francisco!" Another factor of course is "How much is this country actively trying to undermine/is a potential enemy of my own?" which probably for most countries we'd think of as "western" puts Russia, and to a lesser extent China, at the top of the list.

anad7 9y ago

We must of-course include Israel in this list, as far as I know it is a serial human rights violator and uses technology for inciting violence and fear.

lostboys67 9y ago

Well then you just set up a system where companies that are CNI have oversight at some level of course this does mean a lot more vetting and it can be abused like France declaring a yoghurt maker was CNI.

sreenadh 9y ago

I think a better way of putting is that the founders of these startups will cringe to share a public stage or at the very mention of one of the mentioned groups but will happily take their money.